


Men Who Loved God

by slutpunk



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, M/M, Murder, Non Consensual, Rape, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-18
Updated: 2012-03-01
Packaged: 2017-10-31 09:35:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 20
Words: 42,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/342539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slutpunk/pseuds/slutpunk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The frame was six by eleven inches and held a single pressed flower on watercolor paper. It arrived, every year, right on his birthday. He wanted to reach out and touch the edges of the frame, as if he could feel the same hands that made it and finally get some answers, but he knew already it would be useless. He’d tried it before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the novel/film "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."  
> This is my first story for Supernatural, so please be gentle. :)  
> Special thanks to Kayleigh for the inspiration, encouragement, and I love you!

**PROLOUGE**

The man stared down at the frame like it was going to bite him. Or maybe like he wanted to bite it. Either way one of them was going to get hurt.

But that wasn’t true at all because the man knew that he didn’t have it in him to throw it away or burn it or run it over with his car like he imagined doing every time it arrived, every year, right on his birthday. Clockwork. Instead, he picked up the phone and dialed the same number he dialed every year.

“Yeah?”

“Bobby! How are you, sugar?”

A sigh, then, “Gabriel. Another one?”

“What? Can’t I call you just to hear your sweet, dulcet voice?”

Gabriel could hear the barely reigned in frustration in Bobby’s voice. “Damn it, Gabriel. Every year for the past ten years, you’ve called me. Same day, every year. Don’t yank my chain, you damn fool!” A sorry pause. “What kind is it?”

Bobby’s words stung a little more than Gabriel expected, but he tried to put on a brave face. Well, actually, he pouted, but there was no point since no one else around to see and take pity on him. “Yeah, yeah. Another pretty flower all for me.” Gabriel tried to sound excited, but it wasn’t in him. He wanted to reach out and touch the edges of the frame, as if he could feel the same hands that made it and finally get some answers, but he knew already it would be useless. He’d tried it before.

He sighed deeply, scrubbing a hand over his face wearily, “Dunno what kind it is. I’ll make some calls, find out what I can.”

Bobby sounded different when he answered, resigned and sad. “Call me when you know.”

“Yeah.”

Nothing else was said. Gabriel simply hung up and unwrapped a lollipop.

 

The frame was six by eleven inches and held a single pressed flower on watercolor paper. It was always beautiful and simple. Every year it arrived on the twentieth of January, postmarked from the city usually, but sometimes Paris, Moscow, Los Angeles, and even Black Rock, New York once.

What it was doing in the ass-crack of nowhere, Bobby still didn’t know.

Bobby wasn’t new at this in any way. When he’d retired just a few years ago, he’d been one of the units’ best men. After his wife was murdered, there wasn’t anything that held Bobby Singer back from delving into his work. It was easier than dealing with the crippling grief, the unfulfilled revenge. He’d handled hundreds of cases in his lifetime – drunks, domestic abuse, rape, murder – but there was always a few that stuck out in your mind.

There were Dr. Silver’s boys, Joe and Ryan, who went missing while their dad was at work and their mom was out getting groceries. The neighbor’s dog found them a few days later, dumped in a ditch with too many bruises to count (though the corner gave it a good try). He’d found the man behind it a few weeks later, an out of towner named Chet with a record that could have stretched across the whole U-S-of-A.

Years later there was another gruesome case, another murder, this time of a young man. His name was Corbett Johnson and it was pretty clear from the moment Bobby arrived on the scene that it was a hate crime. The murderers (there were four of them, in the end and they were still serving their time) had drawn and carved ‘fag’ and other slurs all over that poor boy’s skin. He’d been hog tied and sodomized with various objects before a hard blow to the head finally killed him. His partner Ed hasn’t been the same since then.

But this case - the one Gabriel called him about once a year - it was the worst of them all. It wasn’t gruesome or gory. The girl simply vanished. No one saw her go, no one knew what happened to her, and she was simply gone. After a year of searching, of researching and tracking, Bobby found nothing. After two years her case was labeled a mystery, she was assumed dead and his captain – Rufus - told him to forget about it. He said okay, but he never really followed orders well.

It haunted him all through his career and even now in his retirement. Granted, he hadn’t really been ready to retire yet, but all it took was one well-placed shot by some dumbass bank robber to paralyze him from the waist down. But that was another story, another case.

This is the case that keeps him awake at night, wondering what he missed, brooding over a bottle of Jack. But the thought that he stumbled over time and time again, the one that frustrated him damn near to tears, was the thought that there wasn’t ever really a crime to be solved at all.

Every year they came and every year Gabriel called him. Every year it was like tearing open an old wound. Bobby already knew they wouldn’t find anything. They’d had the damn things tested every year that they arrived, but never found anything. No prints, no DNA, not even a piece of hair. Just nothing. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean was really not in the mood to listen to even more people trying to placate him and tell him that he could always appeal. He was just gutted and strung up like Bambi’s mother in front of a whole butt load of people, he really did not need to hear someone tell him everything was going to be ‘okay’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the novel/film "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."  
> My first story for Supernatural so please be gentle. :)

**CHAPTER ONE**

“Dean, slow down!”

Even with his long strides, Sam Winchester was struggling to keep up. Good. Dean was really not in the mood to listen to even more people trying to placate him and tell him that he could always appeal. He was just gutted and strung up like Bambi’s mother in front of a whole butt load of people, he really did not need to hear someone tell him everything was going to be ‘okay’.

“Not in the mood, Sam.” Dean Winchester growled out, stomping towards the nearest exit only to stop when he caught sight of the crowd outside and curse. Reporters. Goddamn it. He probably knew most of them too. Oh yeah, this was going to be _fun._

Sam caught up to him, laying a heavy hand on his shoulder as if to hold him down. “Dean, don’t worry, we’ll find a way to – “

“No, Sam. It’s done, okay? Just leave it.” Dean was damn tired. He had little hope of winning going into this and now it was just confirmed in a god damned thirty page long sentence from a jury and judge who were all too eager to believe Dick-fucking-Roman to be nothing but a victim. He brushed off his brother’s hand, setting his mouth in a grim line, but Sam’s Sasquatch hand caught his shoulder again.

“It’ll be fine, we can appeal and find some other way to sink that _jerk_ Dick Roman. Come to my office – “

Dean resisted the urge to slap Sam’s hand away. “No, Sam. Let it go, all right!” Sam looked immediately hurt and dropped his hand. Sighing, Dean pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, feeling a headache coming along already.

“Look, Sam, it’s been a long, horrible day.” He took his hands away, placing one on Sam’s humongous shoulder, “I don’t want to talk about this, I just want to go home, go to bed and not leave my bed for the next ten to fifteen years, all right?”

That’s all it took for that look of hurt to slide away into one of worry (which wasn’t much better in Dean’s opinion) and Sam nodded. “Yeah, Dean, of course. We’ll talk later. Call me when you get home.”

“I’m a grown up, Sam, I think I can make it home.” Dean fought to roll his eyes. You’d think that after practically raising the kid, he’d be the one acting like a mother hen. Apparently not.

“Call.” Dean knew that Sam would refuse to let him leave, so he nodded jerkily and clapped his hand hard on Sam’s shoulder.

“Yeah, yeah, you giant wuss. I’ll call.” He didn’t wait for Sam to say anything else, just turned away and tried to prepare himself for the coming onslaught.

“Don’t forget!” He heard Sam shout behind him and he didn’t even bother turning, just lifted a hand in acknowledgement. Now all Dean had to worry about was not punching one of the reporters and he’d be fine.

 

By the time Dean made it somewhere quiet, he felt like his head was going to split right open. He’d gotten through without hitting any of the reporters, but when he’d managed to brush off their questions and get through to the street where his baby was waiting, Gordon was there too.

He and Gordon had gone from friends to acquaintances to enemies in a matter of months. They’d gone to the same college, had the same courses, and even studied together once. But after school they fell apart - well, it was mostly Dean who stopped trying to be friends once Gordon published some articles practically deifying a company-who-shall-not-be-named for firing over one million of its employees for reasons they refused to disclose (and let’s not even talk about their mysterious off-shore accounts).

Not long after that, Dean published a book on big business’ not-so pristine histories that was not only vastly more popular than any of Gordon’s books and articles, but also used a few choice quotes from some of Gordon’s work. And it might have painted Gordon to be a bit of an idiotic, pompous ass. Luckily for Dean, Gordon found a new job in Public Relations working for one of the companies that Dean worked to tear apart in his book and he didn’t have to see the man so much. Unluckily, once Dean broke through the line of reporters, Gordon was waiting on the other side of it. Even worse, he was leaning against Dean’s baby, the love of his life, the Impala. What a dick.

“Dean.” Gordon’s voice had that same slow drawl still, his lips had curled into a smile that said, _I’m judging you and find you to be beneath me._

“Hey there, Gordon. How you been? How’s the writing going?” Dean had said with a smile as he circled around the front end of the Impala, digging for his keys and trying to avoid looking at Gordon. He’d known that if he looked at Gordon, he’d definitely end up hitting someone and he really did not need another lawsuit.

Gordon’s face had twisted into something sinister. Evidently the writing wasn’t going so well. “Better than yours will be after this.” He didn’t follow after Dean, but instead shouted across the car to him. The flash of cameras was blinding. “I always knew I’d see you here. It was worth the bus fare to see you holding that paper in your hand.”

Sometimes Dean had these lucid moments where he was wise and didn't say anything. This was not one of those moments.

“Eat my dick, douche bag.” He said with an utterly fake, cheery smile before climbing into his baby and peeling out as fast as he could and headed to the Roadhouse.

 

It was hard to find small, family owned bars in New York City, but Dean had managed it. The Roadhouse had all the feel of a Midwestern pub, but stuck in lower Brooklyn. Not very many people knew about it, though it had a few regulars like Dean. Sometimes he wondered how they were still standing since the place always seemed quiet to him. But then again, after living in this city, anything seemed quiet to him.

Jo greeted him, all bouncy blonde hair and wide, knowing eyes gave him a one armed hug and offered the first glass on the house, “Because beer makes everything better, or at least blurrier.” Dean could never say no to free booze, not now. Cassie hated when he drank, but he’d deal with that later. So he took up his usual spot at the bar, glancing up to see that his story had already hit the news. Jo saw his face and made a rushed apology, moving to turn it off.

“No, no, don’t bother.” Dean waved a hand, sipping at his beer for strength.

“Dean Winchester was facing up to 6 months in jail and a fine of one hundred thousand dollars when he went to trial for aggravated libel of multi-million dollar tycoon Richard Roman of Roman Enterprises. The article, published in the magazine _Genesis,_ co-owned by Mr. Winchester, made many extreme claims, but the most heinous of these was the accusation that Mr. Roman was using state funds that were intended for industrial investments in smaller, failing American companies for massive arms deals with gangs and mafias around the world.” The reporter said frankly, staring at the camera with what she probably thought was an objective tone.

Sam appeared on the TV with a few microphones shoved in his face. “We managed to get Mr. Winchester acquitted of seven of the charges and as for the others, we will pursue an appeal--” Dean snorted at that, “—until justice is served.” Dean snorted again. Oh, Sammy. Always so righteous.

The camera changed again, this time showing Dick-fucking-Roman. “Yes, yes, I’m very satisfied with the jury’s judgment. The claims that Mr. Winchester made were extremely outrageous and unfounded and I’m glad to see that he will be paying for his crime. Thank you.”

Dean raised his glass to the TV in salute. Ellen, Jo’s mom, came out from the kitchen with a plate full of burgers and fries. Jo must have told her mom he was here and put in his usual order. Setting his plate down in front of him, Ellen leaned on the other side of the bar, waves of brown and silver hair, eyes dark and knowing.

“You gonna be all right, boy?” It was sweet of her, the way she treated him like a son. There had been times in his life when that was exactly what he needed. This was probably one of those times.

“Yeah, Ellen.” Dean was good at this, telling everyone that he was okay, that he was fine, when he certainly was not. “I mean, not sure if I’ll be able to afford this burger next time I’m here, but…” He spread his hands, shrugging. “I’ll live.”

Ellen just nodded. “You will.”

The burger seemed to swell up in his mouth, making it impossible to chew and swallow. It was a sad, sad waste of a damn good burger.  He already knew that he was done for: his career was going to be ruined, his finances, and don’t even start on what this was going to do to his pride. How the hell did he mess this up so bad?

 

Dean knew exactly how things had gotten so fucked up. It had all started with a friend. A lawyer named Crowley who used to work for Roman Enterprises stepped forward with information. He was an old friend of Dean’s from college and he had climbed high up the social ladder since then. In their college days he had been struggling, but when they chanced to meet at a coffee shop Crowley had been dressed to the nines in an expensive suit, his beard was fuller, but his hairline was receding and he wouldn’t shut up about the condo he’d bought in Manhattan. Dean realized later in the conversation that Crowley had turned into one of those guys Dean always loved to hate, but he put up with the conversation for the sake of being polite. Which was, of course, when things started to get interesting.

There was quite a bit that confused and fascinated Dean, but what he was able to gather was that the Industrial Assistance Program was designed by the government to get larger companies to invest in failing American ones, small companies that were in danger of collapsing. All in all, it seemed to be working. But what this lawyer friend was able to reveal was that the funds that Roman Enterprises received weren’t even going to those investments, but instead the money just disappeared. Now, of course, what made this so scandalous was that this was taxpayer money that was just disappearing. There was a commission done by the American government and Roman was only too happy to comply, but there seemed to be some kind of administrative gaps in the companies he claimed to have invested in and it was brushed aside as an honest mistake.

Of course, Crowley only gave him the basics, scolded him for not looking into it earlier and warned him with a heavy ringed finger to, “Leave me the bloody hell out of it.” He gave them some more contacts to check out, but nothing concrete, nothing that they could really turn into a real story. But it was enough to start with. After that, Cassie turned the story over to Dean and he delved into it. It took him months to get all the right information, to gather just what he needed. He was trying to use legitimate sources, other lawyers who were bitter over being fired, secretaries, security personnel, whoever was willing to come forward.

This is where he’d gone wrong. An anonymous source offered him practically the whole platter, documentation, meeting notes, the whole thing. All of his hard work would be given hard proof and he would go down in history as being the man that brought down Roman Enterprises. It wasn’t until Dean was sitting in the court that he started to consider that he had been set up.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jody Mills had been in this business for a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the novel/film "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."  
> My first story for Supernatural so please be gentle. :)

**CHAPTER TWO**

Jody Mills had been in this business for a long time. Born and raised in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, she knew from a young age what her job would be. Her police chief father practically raised her like a boy, which broke her mother’s heart, but worked out well for her in the end. Miss Officer Mills later became Sheriff Mills and she’d thought herself to be content with her life. She had a handsome husband and a beautiful son in a quaint house in a quiet town.

Until the day it was taken away from her, like a rug pulled out from underneath her feet. A robber broke into her home and murdered her husband and young son. And her grief had carried her here. She’d left the force and moved as far away as possible. No more small towns, no more authorities, just her and her work.

Mills Security was now one of the most sought after security companies in New York State. There were one hundred full-time employees and just over ninety freelancers. This wasn’t a group that took their job lightly, no retired cops, no college students, but real professionals with big clients. They did everything from security consulting to private protection for just about everyone in New York who was worth protecting. At least, that was how her executives saw it (when she is at home, alone with a glass of wine in her sparse, Manhattan apartment, she tells herself that she’s protecting people; that by building a company like this, she’s preventing other families ending up like her own).

The smallest section of Mill Security was private investigations and it was also the one she disliked the most. It was usually trust fund families investigating each other. _I think my wife is cheating on me. I’m being blackmailed. I don’t trust my daughter’s boyfriend_. On, and on, and on. Often, Jody infuriated her board members by turning down jobs like this. Infidelity was something a husband should work out on his own, not waste money and only make the situation worse. If the daughter was an adult, well then it was her choice to date whoever the hell she wanted. Even though she disliked the P.I. section, it was fraught with scandals that could lead to all sorts of painful legal situations, so Jody kept a close eye on it, even if it was so small.

 

It was one such private investigation that brought her here, sitting at the head of a long conference table with Balthazar Allard, lawyer for the Milton family. They both stared down the long oak to Novak who was sitting at the very end, as far from them as possible.

Castiel Novak had never really fit in with Mills Security in the strictest sense. In fact, Jody often thought that he was probably the last person you could ever expect to work in a prestigious security firm. Other freelancers had their own spaces that they took over in the office when they were under contract, but Novak usually stayed away. He came to the office to pick up his assignment, acquire whatever tech gear he might need and drop off his report. It wasn’t that Novak wasn’t gifted, because he was. Again and again he amazed Jody with his ability to acquire so much information, to dig underneath their skin and hone in on the dirt under there like a damn heat seeking missile.

Jody had seen the best example of this when she asked Novak to look into do a basic check on one Alistair Scrivener, CEO of Niveus Pharmaceutical which one of Jody’s clients was looking into buying out. It was supposed to be a routine background check, nothing fancy.

The job had been anything, but simple. It was scheduled to only take one week, but after four weeks and countless emails to Novak that were completely ignored, he finally appeared in her office and dropped the report on her desk before promptly walking right back out. Jody had a fairly easy and almost calm day until that report landed on her desk.

It started out simple enough, although simple was an understatement. It was precise and to the point with footnotes, quotations and source references. The report first detailed all of Alistair Scrivener’s background, education, career, and of course, financial information, right down to the pornography websites he subscribed to.

It wasn’t until about halfway through the report that Novak finally revealed the true dirt on Alistair Scrivener: once a month he hired a prostitute, usually a young boy (very young according to the pictures and CD containing an interview with one of the prostitutes) and took them to a hotel room. Once Alistair Scrivener and his companion were in the room he would proceed to physical batter and then molest the boy. Novak detailed every little thing that Scrivener did to the boys, from caning to outright beatings all in the same dry tone that he used to describe the subjects car. Included in the report were a few grainy pictures taken through a window of the man in question, his hand down the front of a young boy’s pants. More than once Jody had to skip past the details or put the report down entirely in order to gather herself and curse the horribly emotionless voice. She found herself getting angry at Novak, angry at how little he seemed to care about what he wrote as long as all the information was there, how emotionally uninvolved he was.

Needless to say, Jody’s client had not been very pleased with the report or with Jody when she had insisted on turning the report over to the police.

 

Castiel Novak was different not just in his work, but also in appearance. Jody tried not to judge anyone by how they looked and she knew from experience that Novak was not all he seemed to be. But it was damned hard to not feel a little put off by the way Novak presented himself, especially in her company where the dress code was acknowledged by all – except for one.

Jody Mills’ best researcher was pale and much skinnier than other men his age; so skinny she sometimes wondered if he had an eating disorder. His hair was kept short, but not too short and often looked messy and ruffled, liked he’d just rolled out of bed. He had a pierced eyebrow and a steel bar that went through the bridge of his nose where it met his eyebrows. On his neck was a tattoo of a fly that Jody only saw in the summer when he wasn’t wearing layers upon layers of clothes. A while ago there had been a rumor that one of the other employees had been brave enough to ask Novak what the fly meant – he’d only responded by plucking up a copy of the bible from his desk and opening it to Exodus 8:20: “ _This is what the Lord says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me. If you do not let my people go, I will send swarms of flies upon you and your officials, on your people and into your houses. The houses of the Egyptians will be full of flies, and even the ground where they are_.” But Jody didn’t know the validity of that story. There were other tattoos that Jody had glimpsed before but could never quite catch the details of: a loop around his right ankle, another around his forearm and one more. She’d only seen it during the summer, when the buildings air conditioning system had been out and he’d been in to pick up some materials. Novak had worn a thin tank top and Jody could just glimpse a wing, bony and bat-like, sweeping over his shoulder.

Jody knew that Novak didn’t have an eating disorder; she had seen him devour whole pizzas by himself and live off nothing but burgers for a week. He was simply naturally thin and she wondered if he must have been bullied when he was younger for being so small. His features were almost pretty, yet defined with a strong jaw and brow and he had an almost permanent five o’clock shadow. Some days, she worried about him, knowing what she knew. But she also knew he was strong in mind and body and could hold his own. One day, he’d come into work with a bruise on his mouth and she asked him if he was all right.

He’d replied in his usual dry tone, “Fine.”

“Well, I hope you gave as good as you got.” Jody had replied.

For a moment he almost looked like he was going to smile. He had looked at her like he was seeing her for the first time even after working together for almost two years. Then the look was gone, his eyes were back on the floor and he had nodded stiffly.

The fact that Castiel Novak worked for Jody at all was still surprising. Joshua Tailler, Jody’s semi-retired personal lawyer, had recommended Novak to her. He had described Novak as a hard-worker, but having a bit of an attitude. He’d won Jody over with flowers and that elderly charm he carried, making it difficult for her to say no after that. She was still trying to convince herself that it was a good idea.

Novak had been the epitome of difficult from the moment he stepped into the office. For the first few months he was fine, sorting mail, making copies and getting coffee. But he very rarely showed up on time, and barely had a regular work routine. He never spoke to anyone and those who tried to speak to him on anything non-work related were met with blank stares and silence if they were lucky, but most of the time he would simply walk away. Joshua had been making an understatement about his attitude – most times it was like talking to a brick wall. After a while, no one even bothered anymore.

After a month of complaints and nothing good to show for it, Jody called Novak into her office. She tried to calmly explain that it simply wasn’t working out, the usual spiel rolling of her tongue like a memorized speech when he interrupted her.

“If you want an office lackey, call a temp office. I can handle anyone and anything you want, but if all you’re looking for is someone to sort the mail, then you’re a fool.”

Jody had been stunned into silence. Not only his words, but also the timbre of his voice shocked her; she’d never heard him speak before, she realized. He spoke firmly and quickly and she’d barely had enough time to hear what he was saying before he was done speaking, still staring somewhere over her head, hands clenched into fists at his sides and spine rigid. He went on.

“One of your employees has spent the past three weeks writing a report on the doctor – Gaines – the one that dot.com company is thinking of hiring, which I think you’ll find completely useless.” His eyes flicked down to where the report did indeed sit and Jody’s followed it, before snapping back up to his.

“This report is confidential! How could you know?”

“I read it.”

“You read a confidential report? How?”

“For a company that specializes in security, your documents are not very secure. Procedure states that he’s supposed to copy the documents himself, but he gave that task to me before leaving for the bars. And I found his previous report in the staff kitchen.”

“You-- _what_?”

“Don’t worry. I put it in his inbox.”

“How did you get into his document safe?” Jody demanded. She may have sounded a little breathless.

“He showed me where he kept the key code written down along with his computer password underneath the paperweight on his desk. Regardless, my point is that this private detective of yours is incompetent at his job. For instance, his report did not tell you about Dr. Gaines’ cocaine habit or the fact that his ex-wife is now in a mental facility after he spent most of their marriage beating her and her young daughter.”

Jody had slumped back into her chair, struggling to keep her mouth from gaping open in surprise. That Novak had only been here a month and managed to find out things like this, well it was a little insulting. But Novak’s expression hadn’t varied from the moment he walked in and neither had his tone. That detached, low voice that she would come to know only too well. But at that moment, she only rubbed at her temples and heaved a deep sigh.

“I’ll give you three days to prove your allegations or I’m going to have you fired.” She said simply. She didn’t want to say it, but reasoned with herself that at least she might be giving her a chance and making it possible for her to avoid court.

Novak had said nothing, just about-faced and walked out her office. Three days later, there was irrefutable proof in her hands that Dr. Gaines was an utter bastard and Jody changed Novak’s position from office grunt to private researcher and the other P.I. was fired. And she made sure to tell him that she didn’t want to ever know where he got his sources.

 

It was only after some time of working together that Jody began to realize that she genuinely was starting to like Novak. Sure, he was a standoffish and borderline rude, but there was something very eerie about him that she couldn’t resist. Of course, he wasn’t really her type of man and even when she did start to think of him in _that way_ it only led to her thinking about her husband and then the guilt would come in and it was just a big mess. But still, there was something she liked about him, something she found fascinating and mysterious.

It wasn’t until the yearly Christmas party that Jody realized just how enchanted she had become by Novak. She had been thinking about talking to him, explaining how much she liked him – not in _that_ way, never – yet she hadn’t quite gotten up the courage. But it was the Staff Christmas party and she had a few and next thing she knew, Jody was explaining it all to him and he was still just staring at her, those eyes – blue, the brightest blue she had ever known – were drilling into her. The hug she tried to give him hadn’t gone over well. He didn’t shove her away, simply squirmed out of her reach and disappeared into the crowd. Needless to say, Jody was embarrassed by her own behavior the next morning.

She didn’t see him again for three days.

The day Novak reappeared he came into her office and asked her if she would like coffee. Surprised, Jody had answered yes. When he returned with her usual two creams, one sugar he took her by surprise again by sitting down in the chair across her desk.

“Are you attracted to me, Jody?” Same low growl, same monotone voice.

Jody had blushed. “What gave you that idea?”

“Sometimes you look at me like you are attracted to me. You have often tried to touch me. Casually. But you pull away at the last moment.” He made it sound like he was reciting from a textbook.

Jody had to laugh at that, relaxing from her stiff posture to flop back in her chair. “Yeah, well, maybe I don’t want to lose a limb?” It was a weak joke. He didn’t laugh, just stared at that same spot above her head. She sighed, rubbing her index and middle finger hard against her temple to ward off the coming headache.

“Did I ever tell you I was married once?” Novak shook his head. “Well, I was. That’s what got me into all this. My husband and son were murdered.” It had been a long time since then, she was a different person now and saying it aloud was getting easier, though she didn’t think it would ever stop her heart from throbbing so hard. “I suppose in some ways you remind me of my husband.” She didn’t realize how true the words were until they left her mouth. The look on his face changed just a bit and Jody realized it was getting a bit easier to read Novak now, to see the sympathy and unease in his eyes. “So, I might be a little attracted to you. But I would never do anything, I promise you that. I’m your boss, you are my employee.”

Novak almost seemed relieved, nodding his head jerkily, his shoulders relaxed just a little from that stiff posture and the fists on his knees uncurled. “It would never happen, anyway.”

His words forced a laugh out of her and he looked startled to hear it, his eyes landing on her face almost accidentally before he looked away again.

“No, it’s okay, I understand. I’m just an old hag to you, aren’t I?” She was joking, of course.

But he wasn’t. “No, it’s not that. You are quite attractive and age does not matter to me. But you are my boss and, though I like you, I like this job and I would like to keep it. It would be stupid of me to get involved with you in a sexual capacity.”

“Thanks.”

Novak looked confused at her answer, head tilting like a bird.

Jody just smiled. “I hope this doesn’t mean that we can’t be friends.”

To that, Novak just stared at her – right at her – for a long moment. Then, as if deciding something, he stood and came around her desk, bending at the waist to hug her about the shoulders. Awkward and surprised, she hugged him back, patting his shoulder. It was the most intimate he’d ever been.

A couple weeks later she had gone to coffee with Joshua and asked after Novak and his life. The story she was told was more than a little frightening and didn’t help her trust Novak. But still, she liked him even though she may not have trusted him.

 

After that they discussed a new arrangement: Novak would work for Jody as a freelance researcher. It was advantageous for both of them. He received a monthly salary whether or not he worked and he could work from home. She would be relieved of having to listen to her employees complain about how unapproachable and rude Novak was. The number of complaints on the dress code all disappeared overnight. Novak was never required to accept a job if he didn’t like it and sometimes he did turn down a job. But they both agreed that it would be best if Novak never meet the client.

All of that ended up ended with them here, sitting across the boardroom at Novak who was resolutely staring down at the floor. He was wearing his usual: black shirt, black pants (worn grey at the knees) tucked into black boots. A black zip-up sweater with a black wool coat was tossed over the back of a conference chair and his motorcycle helmet sat on the table in front of him. Black on black, on black. There were no brands that she could see on his clothing, no words of any kind. Clearly, he’d made an effort to dress up for the meeting.

Shifting her eyes to Balthazar Allard sitting at her side, she held back an exasperated sigh. Balthazar Allard was a man who took his appearance very seriously. Charcoal grey three-piece suit that was perfectly tailored, undoubtedly brand name, and a purple tie. Everything about him screamed money and poise. Well, except for his attitude.

“So, this is your…” He leaned forward to check the name on the report in front of him, “Casteel Novak?” He sat back again, one hand still holding the glass of scotch he’d asked for when he arrived in her office.

“Castiel.” Novak corrected, his voice lashing out quick and strong, demanding attention before he was quiet again and just watched the floor as if it was the most exciting thing in the room. Balthazar gave her a look.

“Your boss tells me you’re not the chatty type. That true?” Jody leaned forward to try and mediate the conversation, but Novak didn’t give her the chance.

“I am not paid to be chatty.”

“And it’s a good thing, darling, otherwise we’d be here all night.” Balthazar’s tone seemed to imply that he wouldn’t mind that and Jody caught the look Novak shot her that said, _Get to the point or I’m leaving._

“Mr. Allard—“

“Please, love, call me Balthazar.”

Jody hesitated before indulging him, her smile a bit strained now. “Balthazar, then. I believe you had some questions for Castiel?”

“Ah, yes! Right!”

“Is something wrong with the report?”

“No, no, darling, it’s a wonderful report. Very thorough.” There was a pause before Balthazar gave a nervous laugh. “Actually, I didn’t read it!” He looked at Jody as if he expected her to find this funny too. She didn’t, but she still smiled indulgently, watching Castiel wearily. He gave no hint of how he felt about that. “How about you just be a dear and sum it up for me?”

Castiel shifted, as if uncomfortable with the idea before raising his head slightly, but still not looking directly at them, just somewhere above their heads. “Dean Winchester, thirty-two years old, born January 24, 1979 in Lawrence, Kansas to John and Mary Winchester. Father was an ex-marine and mother a housewife. Four years after he was born, they had a second son, Sam Winchester, current age twenty-eight. Six months after, a house fire killed Mary Winchester. Their father took up a drinking habit and the Winchesters moved many times following, mainly due to John’s job as a truck driver. The sons were often left with various friends and acquaintances of their father’s when he couldn’t take them along. Despite the amount of times that he switched schools, the subject was able to graduate high school and get into a college. His transcripts are included. Not a great college, but it didn’t matter. At eighteen he leased an apartment in New York City using their father’s contributions and his own money made while working part-time as a mechanic. During this time, he was the primary caregiver for his sibling. But his fame began the next year when he wrote an article for his college newspaper that revealed a complex embezzlement scam led by the school dean. It earned him the nickname Dean ‘The Hunter’ Winchester, which he despises and the press still uses today. The article is on page seventy-five.”

Castiel barely sounded like he ever took a breath, his voice never changing in tone, but somehow carrying across the room and demanding their attention. “After college he joined the military and served for one year and eight months before leaving to start the magazine, _Genesis,_ with his college friend and current lover Cassie Robinson, who is married. In March of 1999, he married Lisa Braeden and in May their son Ben was born. It is assumed they married because Lisa became pregnant rather than for emotional attachment. Five years later they divorced when Braeden found out about the subject and Robinson’s relationship. The subject pays child support regularly and visits his son often. He claims that he is not good at his job, but critiques of him tell differently. Reviews of his book, _Supernatural_ , detailing big businesses and the myths they perpetuate, were relatively good. I have included their articles in pages one hundred fifteen to one hundred and thirty-five. Not long after his book was published, his father had a heart attack and died. Specializes in political and financial reports and is skilled at quote _seeing what others don’t want to see_ end quote.”

Castiel’s eyes flashed to Balthazar, not at his face, but somewhere over his left shoulder. “Would you like me to go on?”

Balthazar didn’t seem shocked by any of the information that he heard and Jody realized he’d been lying about not having read the report. What was this man up to?

“That will be quiet enough, dear, thank you. What about this mix-up with Roman?”

“It will drain his savings, but he will recover.”

“How the hell could he mess that up so badly?”

Novak paused to consider the question before answering. “Everything the subject has done prior to this is meticulous, well-documented and precise. For him to publish something that the court believes to be completely fabricated is extremely out of character. Something may have gone wrong in the course of his investigation and he may have been fed false information. I believe he is not the one at fault. Since that was not the purpose of the report I did not look into it further. Would you like me to?”

“No, I was just wondering, darling. But you haven’t mentioned what you thought about him.”

Novak’s eyebrows drew together in a frown and it made the piercing there stand out even more. “I’m not paid to share my thoughts. Just facts.”

“Well, I’m asking for your thoughts then. What do you think about him?”

Novak took a moment to think about it before answering. “He is exactly who he claims to be.”

Balthazar didn’t look impressed. “And?”

“And that is something difficult to find in his profession.”

Balthazar smiled then, a sudden and blinding grin that creased the laugh lines in his face. “Well, thank you, Castiel. You’ve been a real joy, truly.” Bewildered, Jody moved to follow Balthazar as he stood and made his way towards Castiel with his hand out. But as soon as it was clear the meeting was over, Castiel had gathered up his things and gone with nothing more than a dirty look at Balthazar’s hand.

There was an awkward silence before Balthazar turned to her with that same grin in place. “Well, he was just _charming._ ” 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Cassie Robinson saw Dean enter the offices of Genesis, she knew that he was bit tipsy already.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the novel/film "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."  
> Thanks for all the support so far, guys! Hope you enjoy the next instalments.   
> Thanks again to Kayleigh!! <3

**CHAPTER THREE**

When Cassie Robinson saw Dean enter the offices of _Genesis_ , she knew that he was bit tipsy already. It was late in the evening and she didn’t have to ask to know that he had stopped over at the Roadhouse. She watched him with her arms crossed over her chest from the doorway of her office.

The staff was huddled around the small TV in the corner of the room. Some had pulled their cubicle chairs over and others were standing. All of them were frowning.

“It’s okay, Yankees won, you can turn the TV off now.” Dean said, and Cassie rolled her eyes. As predicted Becky was the one to speak up first. She had been hired on at the onset of the whole Roman Enterprises thing began and honestly, Cassie would have expected her to high-tail it out of _Genesis_ as soon as the shit began to hit the proverbial fan, but she seemed determined to stay once she and Chuck began to get serious.

“Oh, Dean!” She sighed out before her arms wrapped around his waist. The brown head of her hair only came up to his chest. He sighed, patting her awkwardly on the back, shooting Cassie a look over the girl’s head. Becky Rosen was probably the only person that Dean would ever let get away with something like this, besides Cassie.

“Yeah, uh, thanks, I guess.” She released him only to grasp his face between both hands and direct his face towards hers.

“I just want you to know that we’re here for you.” Becky’s voice was solemn, like someone had just died.

He gave her a hard look, one that said ‘okay that’s enough now’ but it went right over her head. So he just grunted out another, “Thanks.” And that seemed to be enough for her to step off.

Only to have her boyfriend Chuck Shurley step in and wrap an arm around Dean’s shoulder. Granted, he had to lean up onto his toes to do it, but he was a determined kind of guy. Chuck had been with _Genesis_ almost from the beginning and was probably one of the best managing editors Cassie had ever known. But his novels weren’t so well done. Last she heard he was writing some weird incest series about two brothers who hunted vampires, or something.

“Don’t worry, Dean. This isn’t the end of the world.” He paused to consider, “Well, maybe it is since I’m pretty sure you don’t even know what fifty thousand dollars _looks_ like and well, Cassie is pretty pissed.” He opened his mouth to continue then caught sight of the look on Cassie’s face. She was not pissed. She was simply miffed. “Right. Yeah, I should—See you!” He gave Dean’s arm an awkward pat before dashing after Becky, presumably to gossip over the smell of alcohol Dean was no doubt giving off.

Tessa said nothing. She just gave him a sweet smile, patting his arm gently and returned to her desk. Dean often said that was what he liked about Tessa: she never felt the need to say anything that she knew wouldn’t help. Like when his father had passed away a couple years ago. People kept coming to him and telling him how sorry they were, giving them their condolences (for all the good that did him). But Tessa just sat with him through much of the wake and services. She didn’t say anything, until they were alone and she hugged him.

“You love him. He loved you. That’s all that matters now.” And she’d pressed his lips to his cheek and he’d felt better. After that he’d been able to face those people, had felt a little stronger. He’d gotten by.

 Other employees did much the same, patting him on the arm, encouraging him to keep fighting, or telling him how sorry they were before he finally made it over to her.

Looking at how weary he was, seeing that hard façade he always put on when things weren’t going well, Cassie couldn’t even be miffed at him anymore. He came to her and she reached a hand up to cup his cheek. Dean gave her a smile, but it didn’t crinkle the small wrinkles his eyes. She smiled back, but it wasn’t real either.

“Do you want me to stay with you tonight?”

“Can you?” That was a yes.

“I already told Greg I wasn’t coming home.”

 

Dean lay awake that night watching Cassie sleep. That massive head of dark curls he loved to tangle his hands in obscured most of her face and she lay on her stomach, arms out at her side, the sheets low around her waist. The dark expanse of her back was revealed to him and he wanted to reach out and run his fingers over her skin, to press his lips to the dip of her lower back. But he didn’t want to wake her, so he just lay there and watched.

How long had it been? Ten years? More than that. He could still remember the first time they met, the day he walked into the college paper offices. After his meeting with the editor, Cassie – then just another reporter – handed him her number and invited him to a party. It had been pretty obvious from there on out the kind of relationship they would have.  

It was easy and simple. Sometimes they were friends; sometimes they were more than that. After college they had considered moving in together and maybe turning their relationship into something more. Dean had wanted it more than Cassie. She had feared ruining their relationship, she like the easy-going way of it, the way she didn’t have to worry about what he was doing or who and she didn’t want him to feel the same. But there was always something in him that desired her so fiercely it would stagger him. She had often told him that she understood what he meant. It was a silent agreement between them that there was something strangely addicting about the relationship they have.

After a while, he came to believe that they were better like this. He came to accept that they would never be that couple, the one that married and had kids and a home. They would never have the apple pie life. It wasn’t in them. Even when they both married, they couldn’t stop. It was one of his greatest regrets that he couldn’t make things work with Lisa. For a few years, things had been good. But still he found himself gravitating back to Cassie, who was always there with arms open.

When Lisa found out it ruined their marriage, but Cassie’s husband Greg had just turned a blind eye. From what Dean understood, he was some kind of artist and maybe that was why it was so easy for him to shrug her affair off. Dean never really like the guy and didn’t understand him, but he almost admired the guy for being able to accept his wife was involved with another man. Sometimes Dean had wished that Lisa could be like that. If he had wanted Ben to grow up in a broken home he would have never bothered to marry Lisa, no matter how sweet she was or how much might have cared for her.

 

At around four in the morning, Dean still couldn’t sleep so he quietly snuck out of bed and into the living room. His apartment was small, but not as small as the one he and Sammy had all those years ago. The kitchen and dining room were in the same space with the living room just off that. Some of his friends – Cassie, mostly – thought that it was weird to have so many spaces basically made into one big room. But Dean liked it. Sam had made fun of him for being metro sexual with his fondness for “open-space living” but Dean had just smacked him upside the head and that had been the end of that conversation.

He had a small desk set up right in front of the biggest window in the apartment, adjacent to the living room. Dean had a crappy view of course, mostly brick wall and the roof of the building next to the brick wall, but he could still watch the sun come up if he wanted to. And he was beginning to think this was another one of those nights.

Setting down his freshly opened beer (Cassie would forgive him later), Dean turned on his laptop. The first thing he did was check the news, a habit mostly. There was some information about a terrorist group based out of Colorado of all places gaining access to high tech arms, but most of it was about him and Roman and the case. Dean let out a sound of disgust when he saw the headline that read, _DEAN ‘THE HUNTER’ WINCHESTER GUILTY OF LIBEL._ If he had known what Castiel Novak said about him in the boardroom that day, he would have agreed with the man that he did, indeed, hate that goddamned nickname.

Some part of Dean wanted to blame someone else, wanted to blame Crowley for instance. The man had something slimy about him, to be sure, but that could just be Dean’s own bias talking. No, he didn’t have any reason to believe that Crowley had given him falsified information because Crowley wouldn’t shut up about what an _‘ass’_ Dick Roman was and how he’d like to _‘give that tosser a thorough flogging.’_

Dean had never really been into politics and financial stuff per-se, but he did get involved under certain conditions. When, for example, a high-rise landlord was forcing his tenants to pay under the table for sub-par living conditions. Or when a doctor for a company like Niveus Pharmaceuticals was never brought to trial when he purposely made his patients terminally ill for the sake of ‘ _research’_. Or when a company like Roman Enterprises was given taxpayer money and used it to fund gangs. Not cool.

But for all of his good intentions, he was now facing poverty and his magazine would quickly go from the most respected to a whole bunch of nothing. That is, if he didn’t step forward.

That night, Dean wrote up a press release stating that he would be leaving _Genesis_ entirely. Cassie hadn’t been very happy.

“Now you look like an idiot and I look like the idiot-bitch who fired you. Great. Why do you have to leave? Why can’t we just fight this?”

“Cassie, come on.” Dean had sighed out, pressing his fingers his eyes; it seemed like he had a non-stop headache since this whole thing began. He knew better than most how important it was to keep fighting. He’d been doing it all his life: fighting to keep his family together, fighting to get through school, always struggling to do the right thing and not giving up, even when the odds seemed impossible. But this was different.

“I’m just done all right. I knew as soon as Roman’s fucking lawyer showed up on my doorstep and said, ‘Hi there! Here’s your court date!’ that this was already over.”

“Dean, please—“

“Some things you can’t change, all right?” He had shouted then and Cassie’s eyes had gone wide. Dean sighed, turning away from that shocked and frightened expression on her face, struggling to control the way he wanted to lash out. “Some times you just have to give up.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Monday morning was weird.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the novel/film "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."  
> Thanks for all the support so far, guys! Hope you enjoy the next instalments.   
> Thanks again to Kayleigh!! <3

**CHAPTER FOUR**

Monday morning was weird. Cassie had stayed most of the weekend, heading back to her husband’s on Sunday afternoon, leaving him with a sweet kiss and a promise to call later. She had understood exactly what he had needed and they had only left the bed to go to the bathroom and to eat. They never turned the TV on, didn’t check the news.

But Monday morning was still weird. Usually, he was up by seven in the morning and getting ready to start a new day. Before The Article – as it would always be in his mind – he’d get maybe three or four hours of sleep before he would have to be up and at _Genesis_ for another long day of writing and fact-checking and researching. The offices were technically supposed to close at five and that’s when most of the employees generally left. Most nights he and Cassie would stay behind and fool around on her desk or continue poring over documents together or both. When he would get home, it would be straight to bed, with maybe some dinner and a shower if his thoughts weren’t still buried in The Article.

Now, however, Dean was at a loss. He woke up at ten after having slept nearly twelve hours with nothing to do. So he went for a run, he did the dishes (there weren’t very many since Cassie had done them, complaining that he should pick up after himself more often), even vacuumed. Dean was glad then that he didn’t still live with his brother because that was bound to get him some teasing. He avoided channeling in to any news broadcasts, already knowing what the topic would be. Considering he already knew all there was to the story, he really didn’t feel like hearing it regurgitated over and over again. So that left him with few options: bad soap operas and porn.

By the time his house phone rang, he was halfway through his Casa Erotica collection. The number was one he didn’t recognize, but he picked up anyway, ready to be facing some up and coming journalist who’d gotten a hold of his phone number.

“Hello?”

“One moment, please.” Replied a very pleasant, but completely unfamiliar female voice.

“Uh—“ The line clicked and he frowned at the phone as if it had personally offended him. Did she just put him on hold. But he didn’t have to wait for long.

“You hairless--! Oh. Hello?” This voice was unfamiliar as well and definitely male. And British. What the fuck? “Who is this?”

Dean’s jaw ticked. “Dean Winchester. Who the hell is this?”

“Oh. _Oh!_ Right, right! Dean Winchester, yes. This is Balthazar Allard calling from Allard Associates.”

“Good for you. What do you want?”

“Oh, touchy. I have a client who would like to speak to you.”

“Okay, put him on.”

The man – Balthazar – laughed. “Oh, no, he would like to meet you.”

“I’ll see if I can pencil him in.”

“He’d like you to come to him, actually. It’s upstate. Ever heard of Haven? It’s about three hours away.”

“And why the hell would I want to drive all the way upstate to meet your client? What’s he want?”

“To talk, I said that already. And it’s only three hours.”

“Why can’t he just come see me? He elderly or something?”

A laugh. “Oh, no. Just incredibly lazy. I think you might know him? His name is Gabriel Milton.”

Now that had definitely been worth the wait. Gabriel Milton was the head of a big family corporation, Milton & Sons Incorporated. They were an all right company in Dean’s books compared to most. One of the few companies in the country that hadn’t dropped all their factories and took off for the Asia once the economy got bad. Of course, it helped that they had been around for hundreds of years. They had their ups and downs, had downsized a bit, but their employees were taken care of and they were able to keep their name out of the paper. As far as Dean knew there wouldn’t be any reason for them to be calling him.

“What’s he want with me?”

“I’m afraid it’s a matter that is sensitive in nature. It really would be better for you to come up to Haven.”

There was a long pause as Dean considered. His gut said go, his mind wanted to sit and debate the pros and cons. Before he could answer, Balthazar sighed before speaking up again.

“You will be fully compensated for your time.”

“What’s the address again?”

 

Somewhere across town, Castiel Novak was waiting for his leftovers to finish microwaving. He sat at his computer in a ratty band t-shirt and a thick pair of sweatpants. His fingers skittered across the keyboard so quickly and he was so engrossed in his work that he didn’t even notice the sound of his microwave pinging.

Until a program running in the background let out a ping of it’s own and he automatically clicked to it. There, he watched Dean Winchester type a rapid email to his lover, Cassie Robinson, telling her that he was heading out of the city for a few days.

Really, he should have shut down Winchester’s program a few days ago, but it kept slipping his mind. Now though, watching Winchester sign his letter to his girlfriend ‘ _with love_ ,’ Castiel set about closing the program and shutting down any further monitoring he had on the man.

That done, Castiel returned to the small kitchen to get his burger. It was cold.

 

Getting off the bus in Haven, New York, Dean was still wondering if he was going to regret this. For about an hour of the way up here there had been nothing, but trees as far as the eye could see. Now he generally considered himself to be an outdoorsy kind of guy, but even this was a bit much. Both his brother and his son had laughed at him when he informed them where he was going the next day during their usual pizza and Call of Duty night.

“Seriously, Dad?”

“What! It’s for a job all right? Reloading.”

“Dean, do you even know what the hell the job is anyway?”

“Sam! Don’t swear in front of the kid.”

“Dad, I’m twelve, I know what hell is.”

“Don’t swear. What the hell is it with you two?” For a moment the video game was ignored as Sam and Ben both gave him nearly identical bitchfaces. “Shut up.” Dean grunted out. He did not need Ben to be learning any more bitchfaces from his uncle.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“He didn’t say what the job was, exactly, just that he wanted to meet face to face.”

“Yeah, Dad, that’s not creepy at all.”

And on and on they’d gone, both Sam and Ben badgering him with questions and teasing him. Sam had even gone so far as to call Dean a hooker, but at least it was well out of earshot of Ben. Then he’d pulled that serious face and asked how he was doing and Dean had rolled his eyes and called Sam a big girl before telling him he was just fine. This was at least half true because it was times like these that showed him he would be okay. Even though they had spent most of their time bickering between the three of them, it was the happiest Dean could be. He always regretted not quite being the picture perfect father that other boys Ben’s age had, but Ben never seemed to blame him. It was enough that Dean was around, in his mind. So yeah, things weren’t really ideal right now, but it would turn out okay in the end.

But he still didn’t get what the hell he was doing here. Dean stood awkwardly, a small army issue backpack over one shoulder (he had never gotten into the murse thing like Sam had). He was looking for a familiar face, but there wasn’t one. He’d never been to this asscrack of nowhere town before and he had no idea who was supposed to meet him. He was just reaching for his phone when a hand clamped down on his shoulder causing him to whirl around.

“Dean Winchester, I presume?” And there it was, that snotty British accent from over the phone. The man standing on the other end of a stretched out hand was average height and weight, blue eyes and blonde hair. He was attractive enough, with faint lines in his face that gave him that ‘silver fox’ kind of look, but not quite Dean’s type. Still, he accepted the handshake.

“Balthazar Allard?”

“Yes, in the flesh, such as it is. Shall we?”

“Yeah, let’s move this along. I gotta catch the 5:30 bus back.”

“Leaving so soon?” The look he gave Dean over the top of his Audi said that he didn’t think for one second that Dean would actually end up on that bus. Dean just snorted and climbed in, tossing his bag at his feet. Immediately he missed his car, but when he’d talked to Balthazar on the phone, the guy suggested he leave his car behind since they would be reimbursing him for bus fare only. Something having to do with accounting. Whatever.

During the trip, Balthazar did most of the talking, pointing out local town hot spots, of which there were few. It was a damn small town, the kind where Dean was sure that everybody knew everybody’s business. But the Milton estate was on the farthest edge of the town, nestled right at the based of one state forest or another. They drove by what Dean had to guess was a small lake or reservoir of some kind, though he didn’t know which. He’d had to practically look at Haven under a fucking microscope to find the damn place it was that small.  But the road they drove on was smooth and well-taken care of, though it seemed to be a private road.

Eventually the trees parted and a massive house rolled into view. Well, several massive houses, but the focal point was clearly the biggest. Dean whistled at the sight.

“Yes, a bit ostentatious, isn’t it?” Balthazar tsked as they went round the circular driveway and pulled up to the main doors.

At first Dean thought the man standing there was a butler or something, but as they neared he recognized the man’s face from news articles and he realized that was Gabriel Milton.

“Dean-o!” The man exclaimed as Dean climbed out of the car, shouldering his bag onto his shoulder. Dean went to shake the guy’s hand, but instead found himself in a one-armed embrace. “So glad to have you. Baltha-baby didn’t give you too much trouble did he?”

“Told you not to call me that, you prat.”

“Love you, too.” Gabriel called over his shoulder as he literally herded Dean inside the house. “Now, Dean, how do you feel about murder?”

“ _What--?”_

 

Turns out that Gabriel didn’t actually expect him to kill anyone. What he actually meant was pretty different, actually. But it wasn’t until they were settled down in what Dean would have called a living room and Gabriel called the smoking room.

“Lollipop?”

Dean gave the guy a long look before replying. “No. Thanks.” It was hard to picture this guy running a multi-million dollar company, but apparently that’s what he did. He was comparatively short, with a long face and nose and smallish lips. His hair was a bit longer than most and pushed back away from his face. In a really weird way, he reminded Dean a little bit of Sam. But still, that didn’t mean he trusted the guy. For one thing, he seemed a bit over friendly and a little too obsessed with sweets.

“Your loss. So Dean. Wondering why you’re here?”

“Just a little bit.”

Gabriel only raised an eyebrow before he continued. “Well, you heard me mention murder. I’d like you to take on a job for me.”

“Sorry, I don’t kill people, I just smear their good name, in case you haven’t heard.”

“Oh, trust me, big boy, I’ve heard. Nice job, by the way. No, I don’t want you to commit murder; I want you to solve one. Officially, you’ll be writing a biography on little ol’ _moi_ , but that’ll be your real job.”

“Solve one? Isn’t that what police are for?”

“Oh, you are a smart one, aren’t you?” Again, Gabriel gave him no chance to reply, just trampled right over him. “Well, the police have tried. But it’s been ten years and they’ve got jack squat. Not that Bobby isn’t a swell guy, but he’s getting a bit rusty not to even mention retired. So I’ve decided to hire outside help.”

“Hang on. What makes you think that I can solve this case any better than the friggin’ cops?”

“How about you listen to what I have to say first and then you decide if you can solve it or not.” For once, Gabriel didn’t seem to be joking around; his face was serene, yet stern, the yellow lollipop pinched between two fingers. For a moment, Dean caught a glimpse of a normal guy, not some swanky rich dude, not some obnoxious ass, but a man in need of help. And damn if Dean could never resist someone in need of a hand. He sighed, making a show of rolling his eyes before waving a hand for Gabriel to continue.

And just like that, the calm façade was gone and Gabriel was back to being bubbly, “Swell! I’ll have Meg bring in some tea! Or do you prefer coffee? _Meg!_ ” Gabriel hollered out the open door and Dean had to clench his fists on his knees to keep from putting his hands over his ears, still trying to decide if he was going to regret ever coming here.

 

“Now, here’s what you have to understand about my family first: they’re all a bunch of religious fanatics. Oh, don’t worry, _I’m_ not. But they are. Well, my mother and father were and Luci and Mike definitely were forward-slash are, but their kids aren’t so bad. Bet you didn’t read about that on the family Wikipedia page, did you? Yeah, I thought so. Now. My mom and pop had three kids: Michael, Lucifer and the lovely me, Gabriel. I told you, very religious family. Luci is the one who got the short end of that stick. Mom died in childbirth having me in 1970 – I know, I’m older than I look - these days I suspect that it might have had something to do with the way my dad was. You see he wasn’t a real swell guy – a bit heavy-handed if you will. At least, when he was around he was. Had a company to run, you know, left the bros and me in the hands of nannies while he gallivanted across the country. But when he came home, he always found time to instill the same religious fervor he had in all of us. It took to Mike and Luci real quick, but I didn’t have the same boner for it that they did. Biscuit?

Anyway, Lucifer was a bit of a partier, shall we say. Got around a lot, drank a lot, and was always going off on tangents on how we should get rid of all the heretics and the atheists and the immigrants, etcetera. He and Mike would have really got along well if it wasn’t for the drinking. Michael ended up becoming a pastor or a reverend or a father or something and Luci definitely was not able to run the company – oh, he was still involved, of course, but he didn’t run anything more than our subsidiary corporations – so this is when the great Gabriel takes off on his noble steed and starts running the company. Of course, this is when all the interesting stuff happens.

Luci was twenty-six when he knocked up a local girl, Ruby who was only – gosh – fifteen? Sixteen? Sixteen and a gold-digger. Anyway, when Pa found out, he was a little less than pleased. Forced Lucifer to marry the girl and she popped out Azazel. I’m telling you, religious. Right around the same time, Michael and his wife Mary – I know, that was your mother’s name, small world, huh? – have Pamela. I swear, Mike and Luci were like girls who live together and have their periods at the same time because cut to one year later and again they’re both having babies! It was neigh unbearable to be here for years with so many toddlers running around. Of course, Michael and Lucifer had their own houses adjoined to the main one, but still there were little brats running around all day long.

My favorite was Bela, Luci’s kid. She was so sweet and bright and pretty, all the things you could ask for in a little girl. And it broke my heart knowing that Lucifer was turning out just like our dad. She was my little girl. She was nine when my dad finally kicked the bucket and left the whole company to me to run, I was prepared for it, of course, but I wasn’t ready for the amount of time I had to spend away from home. I tried to call as much as I could and come back as often as possible, but I knew there was something I was missing.

Lucifer died in 2001, drowned in the lake stone-cold drunk. Local fishermen found him. After that, Ruby went a little wacky in the head and I took the kids in, moved them here. I still couldn’t be around as much as I wanted to, but damn if I didn’t try. Mike certainly wasn’t gonna help when he had kids of his own to worry about and his wife died a couple years before Luci did. Brain tumor. Most of the time I left them in Raphael’s hands, but he wasn’t much for kids. It wasn’t until 2002 that the shit really hits the fan.

We were having our annual Spring Ball – cheesy, right? Anyway, it’s just this dance where people from the town and people that we want to do business with come to our house and make a mess and drink too much, supposedly as some way of showing them how much we appreciate working with them and how great a family we are. There was a parade in town that day too, some equally cheesy event. Bela had been there before she came to me and asked if we could talk. I’d never seen her look so nervous. I told her sure, I’ll come find you in a few and she walked away. Last time I ever saw her.

Oh, don’t look at me like that, I’m not about to cry on your shoulder, big boy.

Anyway, next thing I know, Raphael comes busting in and informs us that the barn was on fire. So we all go tearing out of there and all do some helping out, tossing buckets and getting the animals out, yada yada, until the firemen showed up and put it out. Barn was practically gutted, but nobody died and the animals were still okay. So we all simmered down and went back to our ball and our dinner. Except my Bela wasn’t there. We searched high and low, all the little nooks and crannies, made search parties. But we never found her. It’s been ten years since then.

Why don’t you follow me, Dean-o. Got something else to show you.”

 

The room that Gabriel led him into was downright creepy. If Dean didn’t already know the story behind all this, Dean would probably be getting the fuck out ASAP. But Gabriel had said there was one more thing for him to know, so he followed.

“My birthday was last month, did you know that? And yes, yours too, happy birthday to us both. Back to me: every year Bela got me the same gift, right from when she was eight onwards.”

 A light flicked on and illuminated the damp room and Dean squinted against the sudden brightness. Lining the walls on both sides of the room were dozens of paintings. At least, that’s what he thought it was until he got up close and saw that they were actually little flowers of different kinds, pressed flat and set on some kind of thick paper.

He turned to Gabriel with a question on his lips, but Gabriel answered it already. “Yeah, flowers. I taught her how to make them and every year she would give me one for my birthday. But here’s the kicker: the left side are ones she gave to me. The right side is ones sent to me by her killer every year since the year she died.”

Popping a fresh lollipop into his mouth, Gabriel turned to Dean.

“So. Feel like taking the job yet?”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean’s eyes stared out at him from the back cover

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the novel/film "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."  
> Thanks for all the support so far, guys! Hope you enjoy the next instalments.   
> Thanks again to Kayleigh!! <3

**CHAPTER FIVE**

Castiel didn’t really know why he had done it, but he’d gone out and bought Dean Winchester’s book. He decided it was curiosity and nothing more. The book was interesting and controversial. In it, Dean details all the biggest lies that big business tells the public. For example, the myth that they never buy off the press because the press is supposed to be free and objective. And he goes on to name several reporters and broadcasting companies that he proves accepted bribes from various companies so they would leave certain details out of their reports. Reading it, Castiel found it no wonder that Dean had gotten such bad press.

Dean’s eyes stared out at him from the back cover as he sat down at his computer and opened up his email. The email address was a familiar one – business_and_party666@hotmail.com - but he only typed in a brief word. _Busy?_ Signing it, _Fly_. As usual, he ran the email through a PGP encryption before sending it off. Then he went to the bathroom and removed the piercings from his eyebrow and ears and nose. Looking in the mirror was like seeing someone almost painfully familiar and he disliked it immediately. But he looked normal and unexciting now. The clothes he pulled on were just as boring, black pants, and a navy blue polo shit Joshua once bought him to get him to, “Stop looking like you’re going to a funeral!” The jacket was one he barely fit anymore, but it was just as non-descript.

Within an hour, he was back home and shucking off the clothes as quick as he could, immediately slipping into something more vulgar and putting his piercings back in. It was safer than looking normal. But he’d gotten what he needed to take the next step. An email waited for him and once he decoded it, he saw it only read a time: 20:00. It was all he needed.

 

So if Cassie hadn’t been completely pissed at him before, she definitely was now. He’d returned to New York to pack his things, let her know he was going write Gabriel Milton’s biography and to pick up his baby. The ensuing fight had ended with her hanging up on him after telling him that, “If _Genesis_ goes down, we’ll know who to thank.” He knew she didn’t mean it, that it was just one of her drive-by tactics meant to leave him hurting while she got to take off, but that didn’t make it any less painful.

Gabriel’s offer had been too good to turn down, though. Not only was Dean interested in the case itself, but Gabriel had also offered to put him up at one of the empty cabins, pay for all of his expenses, pay him double what he usually made _and_ offered to triple it if he found anything new regarding Bela and her death. But that wasn’t even the best part. Gabriel had also promised that he had information on Richard Roman that had never been seen before. Apparently, Dick-fucking-Roman had once worked for Milton  & Sons. It was like dangling apple pie from that little diner in Burkitsville, Indiana Dean had once with his dad and Sammy. That pie would have been worth all the effort.

When he’d arrived at Milton Estate, it hadn’t been Gabriel or Balthazar who greeted him this time. Instead, it was the maid he’d met briefly during his talk with Gabriel, Meg. She had been just as unpleasant as ever.

“Well, howdy. Didn’t expect to see you here.”

Meg had bent down, leaning one arm against the roof the Impala. Her body language read seduction, but her face said contempt. She wasn’t dressed like what Dean always associated with a maid (though his idea was a little biased considering all he knew about maids he learned from anime porn). Meg was the definition of swarthy with dark hair and hair eyes, yet her skin was a pale olive tone. High cheekbones and a small nose and mouth accented her face and eyebrows that were high and arched making it seem like she was constantly judging you. Her jeans were dark from what he could see and she wore a simple leather coat that told him she had probably just thrown it on when she saw him coming down the drive and hadn’t been prepared for how cold it was in the late winter weather.

“Lost, little boy?”

Dean decided not to dignify that with the clever retort he definitely had prepared. “Ha ha. Gabriel said you’d know where I’m supposed to go?”

“I’m sure he did. He putting you up in the cabin out back?” She didn’t wait for him to reply, a habit he suspected that she picked up from her boss. “Head around the side of the house, there’s a little road that goes ‘round the back. Cabin is there. Everything should be prepared for you.” Before he could even say thank you, she was marching back into the main house.

Rolling his eyes and muttering to himself about the rudeness of black-eyed bitches, Dean did as she said and pulled around to the back of the house. Just like she said, a small path led around and off to the side where a small cabin sat waiting at the end of the road. It looked just as old as the main house, but not so well taken care of: the white paint was peeling and a few of the shingles on the roof were falling off. But Dean had seen worse places to live in so he didn’t mind it so much.

Once he’d brought all his bags and his computer set up in, he saw that it really wasn’t so bad. The plaster on the walls was crumbling and it was damn cold, but it would be livable once he got a fire going. The bedroom was enclosed behind glass doors with blinds on them and the kitchen was open to the living room and dining area. There was no desk, but Dean figured the dinner table would serve well enough. A little bit of cleaning up and it’d be just like his place back in the city.

It seemed that Gabriel had someone bring him all the necessary files he would need if the boxes stacked up in the room were any indication. Gabriel had told him how he’d researched it himself, how he’d had private investigators on the case and they’d never found anything. Dean still didn’t see how Gabriel thought that he – a journalist with a ruined career – could find something all those people hadn’t, but whatever. Money was money and even more than that was the opportunity to get revenge on Dick Roman.

He was a little pissed that Gabriel had refused to tell him exactly what he had on Roman, but Dean found that when he thought about it, he didn’t really care. As long as he got something that could get him some of his honor back he decided he could wait.

Just by looking at the boxes before him, Dean could already tell that this was going to be a crap load of research. Taking a deep, bolstering breath, he nodded to himself before diving in.

 

At 19:59, Castiel stepped up to the door of a rundown apartment building and pressed a button with the name Thompson beside it. He had no idea if that was Ash’s – or Dr. Badass, as he liked to call himself – real last name or not, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t have to wait long.

“Yeah?” Ash’s voice was grainy and crackled, but it was still clearly him.

“It’s me.” There was a scuffle and then the click from the door signifying that it was open.

Ash wasn’t what you might expect from a computer genius. He was skinny and pale and seemed to encompass all the stereotypes of your typical redneck. He wore jeans with holes in the knees and seemed to either shirtless or wearing just a ripped up flannel shirts. Worse than that was his hair that always made Castiel feel like wincing and taking a pair of scissors to it. It was a prime example of a mullet, long hair that went right down Ash’s back and clipped short in the front. Even worse was how _proud_ Ash was of it.

“Fly, come on in.” Ash said with a grand gesture as he opened the door. Castiel had never told him his real name; it was unnecessary. “I take it this isn’t a social visit.”

“No, it isn’t.” Castiel cast an eye around, taking in the organized chaos Ash was so fond of. The man caught his look and gave a roguish grin.

“I know. Can’t afford a maid. Us state kids gotta stick together, right?”

“I need that electronic cuff you were talking about. Do you have it?”

“Oh baby, do I ever.” But Ash didn’t move to get it. “What you got for me?”

He had been prepared for this of course and removed his hand from his pocket to hold out a roll of around 750 dollars. “This is what I have.”

Ash stepped in and snatched it out of Castiel’s fingers and he let his hand go back to his coat. Ash didn’t quite look pleased, but he shrugged and pocketed the money. That done, he moved to a box precariously balanced on the edge of his desk and practically bursting with cords and gadgets. Castiel nearly flinched at the sight of it.

But soon enough, Ash let out an, “Ah ha!” and held up a small flat box with a short cord attached to it. It was deceptive in that it almost looked like a hard drive, but upon closer inspection, one could see that it was something different entirely. But humans were in general, fickle and unobservant so he doubted there would be any problem.

Accepting the device from Ash, Castiel turned on his heel to leave, shoving it into his bag.

“You’re welcome!” He heard Ash call as he left, but he was already shutting the door.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The damn place was like a crazy Mormon compound of some kind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the novel/film "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."  
> Thanks again for reading so far!  
> Mucho amour to Kayleigh <3  
> Warning: Rape ahead!

**CHAPTER SIX**

Gabriel had returned the day before to show Dean around and they’d spent the better part of an hour mapping out where the family lived. The damn place was like a crazy Mormon compound of some kind. He’d started by explaining that the land was exclusive to their family alone; “Makes it hard to ever leave the family.” He began with his brother, Michael, who was Dean’s closest neighbor besides Gabriel himself.

“Mike doesn’t come out much these days; he turned into quite the hermit after his wife died.” Gabriel seemed vastly entertained by the idea. “He and I don’t speak.”

“You don’t speak to your own brother?”

“When you’ve spent the majority of your life apologizing for your religiously fanatic brother’s behavior, it tends to get a bit tiring. Just because we’re related doesn’t guarantee love.”

Dean said no more.

After that was Anna, one of Michael’s daughters.

“Watch out for that one. Bit of a firecracker and a tad, hmm…” The man had given him a considering look, “Well, I’m sure you’ll find out. Moving on!”

Anna’s sister – Pamela – had moved away ages ago and cut herself off from the family, according to Gabriel.

“Lucky girl.”

Ruby, Lucifer’s wife and mother of his children, also lived on the compound, as far from Gabriel and the rest of the family as she could get.

“She doesn’t speak to any of us, not even her own kid.”

And lastly there was Azazel, Lucifer’s first child. Gabriel had a weird combination of sad and proud on his face as he spoke of him.

“He’ll probably take over for me once I retire. Smart guy. Tough.”

After that there was only Meg, who had a small house of her own nearby.

“Good luck, Dean-o. You’re gonna need it. Toffee?”

Once he’d gathered all the information he needed, Dean set about setting himself up in the cabin. Once he had his computer and his printer-scanner set, and unpacked most of his things, the place was almost home. He had his ancient tape player arranged, a box full of classic rocks greatest hits. His fingers itched to delve into the material, but Dean had learned better than anyone that he couldn’t work on an empty stomach. So he had gone out for groceries, made himself a meal of hot dogs and macaroni and cheese, and now all that was left was to get the information itself sorted out.

There was almost too much of it. File folders full of pictures from the day Bela disappeared, witness reports, reports of the accident, the police reports, all of it was there. On the one hand, Dean immediately felt overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information that was available to him, but on the other he could feel that coil of anticipation and excitement that being presented with someone else’s dirty laundry always gave him. He knew it probably wasn’t healthy, but it worked for him, damn it.

By the time he was done, he had a full family tree set up that depicted each member of the family, including whatever snippets he knew about their personal lives and recent photos, if he had them. He had managed to sort out the information into a few piles: the first was the police reports, which alone took up two and a half boxes. It was clear that Gabriel had ridden the cops pretty hard to make sure they followed up every possible lead. The second pile was graphic materials, maps of Haven and the Estate, pictures and the like. The biggest map he pinned to one of the walls of the cabin, placing one bright red pin to the Milton Estate. A fourth pile contained files of information on the family themselves, birthdates and medical records, but nothing too deeply personal. Not yet. The last pile was information on Bela herself, her diary, medical records, etc.  This Dean felt would come in most handy considering all that anyone could say about Bela was that she was very bright and very pretty and then she was gone.

He had been planning to wait to delve into her diary until later, but once he picked it up, Dean just couldn’t help himself. He flipped through it only casually, knowing he would sit down and take a more detailed look later, but much of it was filled with quotes from the bible. Except for the last page.

_Constance - 32016_

_A.B. - 32109_

_L.R. - 32018_

_Lenore - 30112_

_K.S. - 32027_

Later in the evening, when Dean was trying to call Cassie and getting sent straight to voicemail, he heard a scratching and meowing at the front door. As soon as the door opened, a black cat with white paws slipped past him. Hanging up as the voicemail beeped, Dean raised his eyebrows at the cat. He wasn’t much for animals, but the look the cat was giving him somehow reminded him of Sam. It was probably the bitchface it had going on.

“Fine. I’ll get you milk. But you are not sleeping on my head.”

 

Two days later, it seemed the cat would _only_ sleep on his head and he’d made his way through nearly all of the police reports. There was one at least once a year and already his computer desktop was a mess of files and notes.

The files didn’t necessarily give any new information, just more details. 8:30 policeman Robert Singer heads over to the Milton Compound. 8:45 he starts interviewing all the family members. By 9:15 a search party is put together. They give up around 12:30 and everyone goes home. For the next month, volunteers line up to form search parties, but they find nothing.

Michael had seen Bela only briefly, in passing. Once the fire started he didn’t see her after that. Ruby, Bela’s mother, had been completely wasted and had taken Bobby to see Bela’s room (where no clothes were gone or any trinkets taken) and promptly told Bobby to, “Eat shit,“ when he suggested that she stop drinking and start helping find her own daughter. Bela’s brother, Azazel had been just as useless since he had arrived later in the evening from boarding school and soon after that, the fire in the barn started. Bobby learned that if Bela had been planning to run away, she hadn’t told her brother at all. Bela’s cousin, Anna, had been with her father at the time. All of them claimed to only see Bela once before she disappeared. Her other cousin, Pamela, hadn’t been as close to Bela in age, but they had been friends. Pamela had last seen Bela at the parade before Bela left suddenly to return back to the estate. She insisted that it was out of character for Bela to disappear without telling anyone. But the fact still remained that Bela was gone and she remained gone for the next ten years.

After that there are C.S.I. reports on the frames that Gabriel received every month, but they were completely clean. There’s no prints, no hair, nothing for them to go on except for the postmark and the flower. Even as objective as Singer is supposed to be, Dean could read the frustration oozing out of every word in the reports as the years go on.

 

That night, Dean was invited to dinner with Gabriel and Azazel, the only person in the family that Gabriel seemed to actually be speaking to.

Azazel was an all around nice guy. He was pleasant and charming; he and Gabriel had the same sense of humor only he didn’t seem to get his kicks by teasing Dean on a personal level as much as possible. That, he left to Gabriel. He was so perfect and charming it made Dean feel a little green with envy.

He had that same vaguely Aryan look that seemed to trickle through the Milton bloodstream, with blonde hair that he had inherited from his father and greenish-yellow eyes. Unlike Gabriel, he looked older than his actual age with thick wrinkles on his forehead and a wide smile that crinkled and showed off his pearly whites. Altogether he wasn’t that bad, not as far as Dean could tell.

They spoke briefly of Bela and Azazel’s smile immediately drained away. Dean tried to change the subject, guilt pooling in his stomach because even though he wanted to find out what happened, he still didn’t want to bring anybody any unnecessary grief. But Azazel just waved it away and refused to turn away from the topic.

“My sister’s disappearance was a tragedy. I don’t think I’ll ever stop wondering if there wasn't something I could have done to save her. … I think the worst part is not knowing.” He sighed and then seemed to collect himself, turning the full attention of his gaze on Dean. “I hope you’ll include that in my uncle’s memoirs.”

Dean could feel Gabriel glaring daggers at him, “Yes. Yes, of course. Obviously it’s a very important moment in this family’s history.”

“You’ve probably heard what my father was like, drunk, you know. The whole deal. But Gabriel took my sister and I in, he cared for us. Bela loved him very much.”

“Don’t ruin the good mood. Let’s talk about something fun. Like this.” Leaning over, Gabriel picked up the New York Times that had been left at the end of the table. “You’ve made front page, big boy!”

That front page basically accused Dean of running away, of _Genesis_ being a crock-pot full of bullshit and Cassie as being an incompetent bimbo. Lo and behold, it was written by Dean’s good friend: Gordon Walker.

“Looks like Walker’s gotten back into writing,” Dean tossed the newspaper into the nearby fireplace. “Hope you didn’t want that back.”

“I borrowed it from Meg, actually. I take it you know this Walker?”

“Yeah, he’s a Grade-A asshole. Don’t pay him any mind.”

“Well, when you put it like that…”

Just then, Azazel’s cell phone went off and he quickly plucked it out of his pocket. For a moment, his face seemed to darken with something that Dean didn’t recognize.

“Bad news?”

Azazel seemed surprised that Dean had noticed, and then laughed it off. “Oh, no. That was an alarm. Let’s men know when it’s time for me to go home and do my exercises.”

Just for that moment, Dean had seen something strange in Azazel. He couldn’t decipher what it was though. The thought was completely gone from his mind by the time he got back to the cabin and promptly passed out with a cat sleeping in the dip of his back.

 

It was Joshua’s birthday and Castiel had been waiting at the café for over twenty minutes. It wasn’t so much that he minded waiting, only that he didn’t like the place itself. He knew very well that he stood out with the way that he looked and dressed, head to toe black and metal in his face, the tattoo on his neck standing out most prominently above the collar of his coat. One of his therapists once said that it was a defense mechanism; a few days later, Castiel had head butted the man. Joshua was the one who had made sure the therapist didn’t press charges.

And now, Joshua was late. Castiel was willing to give him leeway considering that Joshua had been getting on in age and had an arthritic knee. But he had chosen the café specifically because it was only a block away from where Joshua lived. Joshua was always saying how badly he needed to walk around.

Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. Castiel threw his bag over his shoulder and – staring resolutely at the ground – made the trek to Joshua’s.

The man had given him a key long ago, but Castiel still knocked. There was no movement on the other side of the door, but he could hear a radio playing. Something unpleasant settled in his gut.

“Hello?” Castiel called out, but there was no response. It only took him a moment to notice the way the chess pieces on the table by the window had scattered and then to see the body crumpled there.

The doctors told him that it was a stroke. There would be neurological damage, but they couldn’t be sure what it would affect until he woke up.

In other words, Castiel had nearly lost someone, again.

 

Castiel had been staring at the door for twenty minutes. By now, he had every letter of the name on the plaque memorized: “ZACHARIAH ADLER.” During their first appointment, Zachariah had made it very clear the kind of man he was and the person he thought Castiel to be.

But Castiel wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t. He was just nervous. Zachariah was so different from Joshua in a myriad of ways and Castiel hated it.

Joshua had almost immediately seen through all of Castiel’s defenses: he was the first person to ever try to get to know Castiel instead of just shucking him off on to someone else or holding him down with strict rules. Joshua was the first person who actually cared about Castiel.

Castiel had been a ward for a long time; he knew how the system worked. Those who knew he was a ward often asked him why, but he never answered. It was better if people didn’t know. Technically, he was supposed to be off the state tit when he turned eighteen, but at twenty-eight he was still considered their ward and still received their money (he didn’t need it, but they seemed to think he did).

When Castiel was twelve he was declared mentally incompetent and was turned over to a state mental facility. He’d been an orphan from the very beginning, popped out of his mother’s womb and immediately handed over to the state. He had never bothered to find out who his parents were because to him they weren’t worth the time. He was passed around from hand to hand, but at twelve the state decided that he was too violent and dangerous to others and himself, and could not be let out into society. So they placed him in a mental health facility for youth.

For the next three years, Castiel refused any attempts by the doctors or facility staff to get him to ‘open up.’ During meetings he would either stare at a spot on the floor or above their head, but never look at anyone. In classes, he refused to pick up a pen and never gave any sign that he heard what was being said. Sometimes the nurses would carry him to the classroom and put a pen in his hand, and he would only let it fall. For three years, he didn’t speak. Only then did the doctors finally decide that he wasn’t dangerously violent after all and had him released into foster care at fifteen.

Within two weeks of living at his first foster home, Castiel tried to run away. After the second and third, Joshua finally sat him down and explained to him that if he continued to reject these homes, he would be put back in a mental facility. The fourth home he was paired with a kind elderly couple and while he stayed put, that didn’t stop him from getting into trouble.

That year he was seventeen and was arrested three times. The first was for being so drunk he ended up in a hospital. The second was when he was found drunk, again, this time with a much older woman. The third time he was charged with assault and battery after he punched a man in the face while riding the subway train. At the trial, he claimed that the man groped his crotch and a witness was able to support his claim. The charges were dropped, but the court still ordered that Castiel participate in a psychiatric evaluation. Which he, of course, refused and spent every single appointment glaring a hole into the floor. The doctors were forced to make their determinations by observation: asocial, introverted, emotionally inept, lacking in empathy, uncooperative, on and on the document went. Castiel knew, he’d hacked into the government’s new highly confidential, online filing system and read it all.

It was decided that the best course of action would be for Castiel to be institutionalized all over again. The day of the trial, he was preparing himself for the worse, didn’t talk for days beforehand, knowing that he might be spending the rest of his life in silence all over again.

But that wasn’t what happened. Joshua was there as his legal representative and made a compelling case for keeping Castiel out of another institution. He ripped into the doctor who had examined Castiel proving that, since Castiel had not spoken a word, there was no scientific basis for his conclusion and that it was all just guesswork. He then continued to convince the court that interring someone on the basis of such guesswork could have extreme public backlash and they squirmed at the thought.

So the court decided that Castiel was intended emotionally disturbed and socially incompetent, but that he wouldn’t need to be interned. The court suggested that Castiel still needed a guardian, however and immediately turned to Joshua, expecting him to turn the job down.

To the surprise of everyone, he agreed to accept so long as Castiel would have him. It was the first time that Castiel looked at anyone during the whole course of the trial. He only nodded.

Joshua had been his caretaker since he was thirteen and his guardian since he was seventeen – until his stroke and the state decided that he was in no condition to be Castiel’s guardian anymore. They were right he had to agree.

At first, Castiel had considered not going to meet his new guardian, but he remembered that Joshua had spent years trying to teach him the consequences of his actions, so he went. He had regretted it almost immediately, but still he went. Adler had made it clear from the beginning that he was not going to be as kind as Joshua had been. His first step had to been cut Castiel off almost completely from his money. Instead of simply giving his monthly stipend to Castiel and allowing Castiel full access to any of the money he earned, Adler took away all of his access. It didn’t matter that the money in that bank account was mostly Castiel’s own earnings from working for Jody Mills. Adler explained that if he wanted any money, Castiel must go to Adler for it and he must provide receipts for anything and everything. If he did not cooperate, Adler would be forced to deduce that Castiel was not fit to live in normal society and should be institutionalized. Castiel hated him immediately and had stormed out of the meeting as soon as Adler decided he understood and dismissed him.

 

Zachariah Adler looked up from his desk at the sound of a knock before turning his gaze back to his paperwork and calling, “Come in.” Castiel slipped inside. The boy (for that was all that Zachariah could think of him as) didn’t look up as he sat down in one of the chairs before the desk, settling his bag on his lap.

“Hello, Castiel.” Zachariah said, settling down his papers and lacing his fingers together. Castiel glanced up, fixing his eyes at a point on the wall just over the man’s head. Zachariah almost laughed.

“Mr. Adler.” Castiel said stiffly.

“Please, I thought I told you to call me Zachariah. Mr. Adler is my father!” He laughed, but Castiel didn’t join him and that sent a hot blaze of angry through him. It was gone as quick as it had come, but his pleasant smile was gone.

Castiel only nodded.

“Still not very sociable, I see.” Zachariah’s voice had lost all of its cheery falseness and he turned serious. “How am I supposed to help you if you won’t cooperate, Castiel?” He sighed and Castiel’s eyes drifted back to the ground, his jaw clenching hard, hands fisting in the straps of his bag. Yes, Zachariah could see exactly why the boy had been institutionalized already. Just look at the way he _dressed_. So much black. Did he really think that made him attractive?

Zachariah stood, buttoning the jacket of his navy blue suit over his protruding belly. “You don’t say much. That’s fine. You don’t have to, Castiel. I know what you’ve been through. It’s been tough, I understand that.” His voice took on a soft, almost patronizing tone. As he spoke, Zachariah circled around the front of the desk, casual as could be. The closer he got to Castiel, the more the boy shifted nervously in his chair, squirming as if resisting the urge to run away and Zachariah could feel something tingle in his gut. “I’m a nice guy, you know. I want to help you. I think you want my help. But I need you to participate if we’re going to get anywhere.”

Now he stood in front of the desk, almost directly in front of Castiel. Castiel’s hand had a white knuckled grip in his bag and his eyes stared resolutely at the floor.

“You do want my help, don’t you? Castiel?”

Castiel didn’t respond.

Zachariah sighed and moved forward slowly, reaching out a hand. “Give me your hand.” It took a long time for Castiel to move, a nerve in his jaw clicking. Finally, he released his grip and put his hand into Zachariah’s.

“I can help you, Castiel.” Zachariah murmured as he clasped the younger man’s between his two and worked it out of its fist, still gentle. “But only if you help me.”

Pulling on Castiel’s hand, Zachariah guided it to his crotch where he was already hard. He rubbed it there with a sweaty hand gripping Castiel’s wrist, gasping out his pleasure. Castiel’s face had gone completely blank, but Zachariah didn’t care. It wasn’t the boys’ face he was interested in.

The man’s voice was breathless when he spoke again. “Come on, Castiel. Have faith.” His hand went to the top of Castiel’s head, almost gentle before he dragged the man’s face to his crotch. “You know what to do, Castiel. You were made for this, weren’t you?”

Zachariah made Castiel suck his cock, hands fisted into his hair, bucking brutally into him until he came in the boy’s mouth. He forced Castiel to swallow by clamping a hand down on his mouth and pinching his nose. The thrill of it was amazing, potent, addictive.

When it was done, Zachariah allowed Castiel to use the bathroom in his office to clean up, and he didn’t hear it when Castiel shoved two fingers down his throat and forced himself to throw up.

Before he left, Zachariah handed him a check that said, ‘for food and groceries’ on the Note line and gave Castiel a gentle pat on the head, as if nothing had happened.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Who are you and what do you want?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the novel/film "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."  
> Thanks again for reading so far!  
> Mucho amour to Kayleigh <3  
> Warning: RAPE SCENES AHEAD.

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

Bobby Singer’s home was tucked away from the town of Haven, but not nearly as far as the Milton Estate. As Dean rumbled up to the home in the Impala, he saw that the guy definitely liked the simple life. A sign over his car lot read Singer Salvage and from the wide array of cars littering most of the property, Dean figured the guy must be doing well. The house itself was a bit run down, but looked like it had been nice in its time. Dean liked it immediately, even with its cracking red paint and missing shingles on the roof. It was the kind of house Dean could see himself moving into some day and fixing up. Cassie would probably hate it.

He’d wanted to call ahead to let Bobby know he was interested in talking to him, but Gabriel told him that the guy doesn’t answer the phone if he doesn’t recognize the number on caller ID. “He’s a bit paranoid like that.”

So Dean could only hope that the guy was home and that he even felt like talking. He was just raising his hand to knock when the door flew open and an old man sitting in a wheelchair with a shotgun sitting across his lap was revealed to him.

“Who are you and what do you want?” The man’s voice was gruff, most of his face taken up by the expanse of his beard. Even in the wheelchair, Dean could tell the guy was stout and that he knew how to handle that shotgun by the way he laid his hand over it.

“I come in peace.” Dean said, raising his hands and spreading his fingers, giving his most charming smile. “You’re Bobby Singer, right?”

“I might be.”

“Look, I just want to chat. About Bela Milton’s case?”

The man’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What the hell do you know about Bela Milton, boy?”

“A few things. I’m writing a biography of Gabriel Milton, her uncle. Her disappearance was a pretty big thing for him.”

Bobby huffed out a laugh. “That’s an understatement if I ever heard one.” Giving Dean one more look over, he nodded before backing up in his wheelchair enough for Dean to come in. “Well, get in here, kid. I don’t have all day.”

Dean wanted to ask what the hell an old retiree in a wheelchair had to do today, but he thought it might be best to keep his mouth shut. So he slid inside and shut the door behind him.

 

Bobby Singer was definitely Dean’s kind of man. Instead of offering him coffee or tea, he set a glass down in front of him and poured two fingers of whiskey. Cassie’s voice immediately went through his head, reminding him how only alcoholics drank before five, but he countered it with the fact that he was on a case and was going to need it.

“So, what do you want to know?”

“Well, I’ve read all your reports—“

“All of them?” Bobby sounded surprised, his eyebrows disappearing under his ball cap.

“Uh, yeah. All of them. Gabriel gave them to me.” Was the guy surprised that he had them or surprised that he had read them all? “Anyway, uh, there’s a couple things that aren’t in your report that I wanted to ask you about.”

“Well, shoot.”

“Okay, so first of all, can you tell me about the search?”

“Probably nothing you don’t already know. We did things different in those days, none of that twenty-four hours bullshit. Young girl went missing we pulled out all the stops. Got the call around 8, 8:30. Started interviews. Mother was drunk as a damn skunk, didn’t really seem to care her daughter was gone. Started a search not long after that. Didn’t find anything.”

“And what do you think happened to Bela?”

“She’s dead, ain’t she? Only explanation.” Sighing deeply, Bobby stitched his fingers together in his lap. “I didn’t want to believe it for a long time. Neither did Gabriel for that matter. But after a while, when all the information’s telling you dead, dead, dead you can’t believe much else.”

“You really don’t think she might have just run away.”

“Are you sure you read those reports, boy?” Bobby shook his head as if Dean was the biggest idiot he’d ever encountered. “Nothing of her stuff was missing, didn’t even look like it had been touched. Why would a teenage girl ever run away without any of her stuff?”

Dean huffed a laugh, trying to not be stung by the man’s comment. “Yeah, I guess so. I have, uh, something here. Her diary.” Setting down his notebook, Dean dug in the pocket of his jacket, pulling out the small yellow journal and putting it on the table between them.

“Yeah, I know that thing. Learned it cover to cover. It won’t tell you a damn thing.”

“But what about this last page,” Dean leaned forward and opened it up to said page, showing it to the man. “What do these mean?”

“No idea. We matched some of the names to some local women, but none of them had ever met Bela. We got no idea what the numbers mean. Once her case went cold, I just stopped tryin’.”

“Thanks, sir, this has been really interesting.” Whether or not it would be helpful or not, Dean still didn’t know.

“Yeah, well, it’s one case I won’t ever forget. More whiskey?”

 

When he returned to the cabin, Dean was surprised to see a woman peaking in through the windows of the front door. Fiery red hair burned bright in the sun, but it was all of her that Dean could make out. She turned when he pulled up in the car and he caught a glimpse of pale skin.

“Can I help you?” He asked as he stepped up to the door, fishing for the keys in his pocket.

“I just thought I’d stop by and say hello.” He could see now that she was pretty, enchantingly so with small, but sharp features, and pale skin that was made even more so by the red of her hair. She was petit and compact, and dressed casually with a scarf tied around her neck. All in all, definitely Dean’s type. Then again his type tended to be human with all limbs attached, but that was beside the point.

Cassie flickered through his mind briefly, but it was painful so he shoved the thought away.

His eyebrows raised in question, very aware of the flirty grin on his face, and she seemed to remember herself. “Oh! I’m Anna. Anna Milton? Michael’s daughter?”

“Right! And I’m Dean Winchester, but I have the feeling you knew that,” He clasped her hand in his and gave it a gentle shake. Her hands were small and soft. “Right, come on in!” He opened the door and immediately wished he’d cleaned up. But then again he very rarely kept things nice and tidy when he was working on an article. “Sorry about the mess. You want a drink or something?”

“No, it’s all right.” Dean went about cleaning up dirty dishes he’d left out and when he turned around she was staring at the mini-family tree he’d created of the Milton family. “So you’re writing Gabriel’s biography?”

“Uh, yeah. Don’t know why he thinks he needs one, but you know. Job’s a job.”

Anna looked sad for a moment and Dean could see that she had some kind of ethereal quality about her, something wispy and almost fairy-like and it made his stomach knot up.

“Well, you look like you’re doing a very good job.” She smiled and it was shy, but pretty and Dean grinned back.

“I do try. Hopefully it’ll turn out better than my last job.” He sidled up to her until they were shoulder to shoulder, looking at the wall of pictures and names.

“Yes, I heard about that. I’m sorry.” He was surprised by her touch on his arm, but he recognized it for what it was and his grin turned lascivious.

“You don’t have to be. My own damn fault. Why don’t you sit down?” He moved to clear some space for her on the couch, settling himself down beside her. “Would it be all right if I ask you some questions? For the book, of course.”

She laughed a little, almost shyly, but the look in her eyes said something entirely different. “Sure. I guess. What do you want to know?”

“How old are you?”

“Thirty.”

“What do you do?”

“I work for the company. Shouldn’t you be writing this down?”

“I got it. Where do you live?”

“Here, on the Estate. Haven’t ever lived anywhere else.”

“Do you have siblings?”

“You know the answer to that; it’s on your wall. I have a sister. Pamela.”

“What does she do?”

“Don’t know.”

“Don’t know? How can you not know?”

“She took off not long after Bela disappeared. Haven’t heard from her since. She doesn’t like the family much.”

“Sorry, was that rude of me?”

“No, it’s fine. It’s been a long time.”

Dean wanted to keep on questioning her, wanted to stay there with his arm over the side of the couch, just inches from touching her and his body a few polite centimeters away, but the wheels in his head began turning.

“Do you have any way of contacting Pamela?”

“Are you kidding?” Anna’s laugh was quiet, but sweet. “No, you couldn’t pay her a million dollars to get back into contact with us. Trust me, Dad’s tried. She won’t speak to any of us.”

Dean nodded, brow creasing.

“Are you all right?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah! I think I might have had some kind of epiphany, but I’m fine, happens all the time. Why don’t you tell me more about yourself?”

 

They talked for another hour before Anna had to excuse herself. Dean was sad to see her go, but at the same time he wondered if he was just looking for some kind of rebound since Cassie quite clearly was not answering his calls. And yet, from what he could tell of their conversation anyway, Anna wasn’t really looking for a full on relationship. Instead, she had said, “I want to live every day like it could be my last day on earth, you know?” It was something that Dean was beginning to believe he could get along with.

But now that she was gone, he could focus on work again. It only took him two phone calls and one missed call to find Pamela Barnes nee Milton.

“Hello?” The voice that picked up on the second ring was low and sounded annoyed.

“Hey, is this Pamela Barnes?” Dean mentally crossed his fingers.

“Why, yes, speaking.” Somehow the voice on the other end had gone from annoyed to sultry in two seconds flat.

Dean had to laugh a little, “Uh, well this is Dean Winchester I’m a writer, sort of and—“

“Winchester? Weren’t you in the news?”

“Yeah, I was. Not by choice. Anyway, I’m writing a biography about your uncle Gabriel and I was wondering if you could answer some questions, please don’t hang up.” He really did not want to fly all the way out to Illinois to see this woman.

There was a long silence and then a sigh. “All right, but make it quick.”

Dean pumped his fist in the air then quickly grabbed for his notebook. “Okay, uh, I have up until the early 80s, so I was wondering if you could clear something up for me. About Bela? She was really important to Gabriel, so she’s gonna be important to the book, you know?”

There was another long silence during which Dean actually checked his phone to make sure she hadn’t actually hung up on him. “What exactly do you wanna know?”

“Well, I know a lot of details about what happened, but I don’t really know much about the girl herself. Your sister, Anna, mentioned that even though you guys were far apart in age, you and Bela were pretty close. What can you tell me about her?”

A long sigh, but her tone was indulgent when she spoke, “Well, she was a little messed up, but who isn’t, really. She had her problems you know, drunk dad and drunk mom. But she was smart, real smart and all that. Sometimes she had crazy mood swings – one minute she’s happy and talking and the next she won’t speak to anyone. I don’t know, Dean, she was a teenager, so most of it was expected from her.”

“No, right, of course. Can I ask one more thing? Why did you leave?” He winced around the question, already bracing himself for whiplash.

“Have you met my family?”

 

Zachariah would be lying if he said he wasn’t completely delighted with how things had turned out. Castiel had called him not one hour ago, asking for money and immediately Zachariah knew he’d found the moment he’d been waiting for. Calmly, he told Castiel to stop by his apartment at six o’clock and now here they were. Castiel sat at his kitchen table looking completely out of place and Zachariah just about reveled in it. He liked the way Castiel pressed himself into the chair, eyes carefully on the ground like he was afraid. Good. He should be.

“Explain what happened, Castiel.” Zachariah’s voice was full of authority, he made sure of it.

Castiel let out a long, shaky sigh, “I was on the subway. Someone tried to steal my bag. I got it back. The back dropped. My computer cracked, the harddrive is compromised and I need a new computer.”

“Why do you need a new computer, Castiel?”

“For work.”

“You need it to help you sort mail and serve coffee?” It was quite clear that Zachariah didn’t believe Castiel at all. But he sighed, feeling benevolent. “I think I can help you, Castiel. But help doesn’t come without a price.” Zachariah hadn’t changed out of his work clothes yet, but as he stood, he shed the jacket of his suit. “Follow me, Castiel.”

Zachariah moved out of the kitchen, but when he turned back, Castiel was still sitting there, that same white knuckled grip in his bag. Zachariah sighed, fixing his icy blue gaze on the boy. “Castiel.” His voice left no room for disobedience. “You want my help. I want to help you. But first, you have to help me. This is how the world works. Now, follow me, Castiel.” Each word was hissed out between clenched teeth.

For a moment, Zachariah though he might have to drag Castiel along, but eventually the boy stood up and followed him down the hall to the bedroom. He showed Castiel inside and the boy moved past him with shoulders hunched around his bag. He set the bag down in the chair in the corner of the room and shucked his jacket.

It wasn’t until Castiel made to turn around that Zachariah clamped a damp cloth of chloroform over the boys nose and mouth, held him as he struggled and caught him when he fell to the ground limp and unconscious. Only then did Zachariah allow himself a small private grin.

 

By the time Castiel woke up, face down, his hands and feet were restrained to Zachariah’s bed, a pillow beneath his hips. The man took pride in his work, the work that he had spent the better part of a month on. And all of it finally came to this moment. Zachariah stood for a long time, just watching Castiel struggle and fail, watching him holler around the cloth tied around his head. He just sat there watching and nursing his drink until it was gone and then he stood and let Castiel see him. That only made the boy struggle even more.

“Oh, I wouldn’t bother if I were you. I spent quite some time making sure that even a feisty one like you wouldn’t be able to get out of there. Do you know how hard it is to find prison grade handcuffs?” Zachariah answered for Castiel, “Harder than you might think! But I do ask that you keep it down, I have neighbours, you know.”

He moved forward, the sleeves of his work shirt rolled up over his elbows. “Now, don’t pretend this isn’t what you want Castiel. I know what people like you need. What filth like you need.” As he spoke, his hands trailed over Castiel’s cloth-covered skin. The boys hips were so slim that all Zachariah had to do was tug on his pants and they were down over his knees. Oh, how that made him struggle and scream.

Zachariah tsked. “Why do you wear so much black, huh? Do you think it makes you attractive?” He leaned down until his mouth was pressed to the hollow of Castiel’s ear, using a hand to shove the boys face into the mattress. “I bet you do it on purpose, don’t you? You’re just hungry for attention.”

He released the boy and stood back to watch him struggle again, just knowing that Castiel was cursing his name. But finally he couldn’t take it anymore and he reached forward to rip the boys underwear down and bury his face between the round globes of his ass. He licked and licked at that hole, rough hands forcing Castiel’s hips into stillness. It would take time, he knew, for Castiel to give up. But he would eventually. They all did.

It didn’t happen until he was buried inside that sweet, tight warmth, squeezing brutally at Castiel’s ass and pounding his way in. That was when Castiel finally went still, when he finally stopped struggling. Zachariah kept pounding away until he was completely satisfied, ripping the condom off at the last moment and spilling himself all over Castiel’s face.

Half an hour later, Castiel was gone, his ten thousand dollar check in hand and a slight limp in his gait.

Zachariah sat down and had himself a well-deserved drink.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was seriously beginning to think that if he laid it out end to end he’d have a crap-ton of paper laid out end to end and nothing to show for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the novel/film "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."  
> Thanks so much for reading so far!  
> Kayleigh, I love you.

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

Weeks later and Dean had barely cracked a dent in the research Gabriel had given him. He was seriously beginning to think that if he laid it out end to end he’d have a crap-ton of paper laid out end to end and nothing to show for it. Dean tried not to lose hope though; he’d get through it all, probably not solve the case and still end up with some dirt on Dick-fucking-Roman.

It was just going to take a long fucking time getting there.

Okay, so maybe Dean wasn’t as patient as he liked to believe he was. The cabin had warmed up considerably with the coming spring and with the help of a fire (special thanks to Dad for ‘camping’ trips parked along backwater highways) and the company of the cat helped (and thanks to him for getting cat hair all over police reports), but it already seemed to be bearing down on him. Sometimes, Dean would head out and go for a long drive; if there was one thing he’d forgotten from living in the city, it was how nice good old country air was. It cleared his head, put a spring in his step, and all around put him in a good mood.

That was until he got back to the cabin and his pocket started singing the first few notes of Metallica’s “Some Kind of Monster.” When he glanced at the caller ID his heart jumped into his throat.

“Hey, Cassie.”

“Dean. Hi.” There was a long pause where neither of them knew what to say exactly. “How are you?”

“Fine, yeah, good. Uh. How are you?” He winced at how needy his sounded.

“Holding on.” Another long pause and he debated speaking up, was already forming the words for an apology when she beat him to it. “I’m selling _Genesis_.”

“I’m—You’re--. What?”

“I’m selling _Genesis_.”

“No, that was—What the fuck, Cassie?”

“What, Dean? What am I supposed to do? You took off!” If she had been holding back her anger before she certainly wasn’t try to this time. “You took off and now we’ve lost over half of our subscribers and we have months at best.”

He sighed, “Why didn’t you talk to me about this first?”

“Don’t you remember? You fired yourself. You left me here to try and put this mess together. And the only way of keeping _Genesis_ alive is to sell.”

“Well to who?”

“Milton & Sons. I’m surprised that Gabriel never told you.”

Oh, he and Gabriel were going to have a nice little chat, very nice indeed. “No, he failed to mention it. Fuck.” Dean collapsed backwards onto his bed, and the cat which had been sleeping there hiss at him. “What’s gonna happen?”

Her voice was gentler now, “Nothing will change. Not the management, not the employees, not even the content.” She laughed and it made his chest ache. “I guess he is more concerned with trying to get on Roman’s bad side than actually having anything to do with us.”

“Yeah, that sounds like something he would do.”

Another long empty pause and Dean remembered better times when they would lay on opposite ends of the world and fall asleep with the phone to their ears just listening to each other breathe.

Now it only felt strained, awkward.

“I just thought you should know.” Her voice was quiet and almost sad, like she had the same thoughts running through her head, the same memories.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“Goodbye,  Dean.”

“Yeah.”

Well, there went his good mood.

 

Half an hour later, he was calling the phone number that Anna had left him with and half an hour after that they were making out and then they were tumbling into bed, leaving only a trail of clothes behind them and about an hour and half after that they were laying there panting and sweaty and sated.

Anna lit up a cigarette and, after taking a long drag, offered it to him. He accepted.

The last time he smoked he was 18; that was right around when he and Cassie got together and she made it clear she would never date anyone who smoked or drank too much. So he made some changes. But what use was all that now? So yeah, he was fucking glad to have a cigarette.

“Did you leave any marks?” Anna asked, rubbing at her neck absently, propped up against the head board on a pile of pillows. “I hate hickeys. People around here ask questions.”

“I don’t think so.” As much as actually Dean liked to leave love bites, somehow he could tell by Anna’s prudish manner that they would be a no go.

She just nodded and there was silence as they passed the cigarette back and forth between them.

“Dean, you know that this is probably a—“

“A one time thing? Yeah. I know.” He grinned at her easily, quirking up the side of his mouth. The smile he received back was warm and relieved.

“Good. Good.” The quiet between them was easy and there was little awkwardness. It was comfortable, like they’d both just done each other a favor. When the cigarette was gone, Anna got up and began collecting her clothes while Dean just put on his jeans.

“Oops! Crap.”

“What?” Dean called from the bathroom.

“Nothing, I just knocked over some—“ There was a pause, then, “Why do you have pictures of Bela?”

Crap. Dean hurried out of the bathroom, scrubbing his hands on his jeans to dry them. “What?”

“These pictures,” she was standing there in her lingerie, holding a folder a pile of pictures he hadn’t gone through yet. “They’re of Bela.” She handed them over and Dean looked them over. It was Bela, but she was in a crowd of people. This must have been the parade she went to that day with her friends. He could see her there on the sidewalk with a couple of people while other locals lined the streets and cars drove slowly by. “I thought you said you were writing about Gabriel?”

“What? Oh. I am. I am. But Bela was a big part of his life, you know, I can’t leave her out of this.”

Anna nodded slowly, “Right.” She didn’t quite sound like she believed him, but he was too focused on the pictures to notice. They looked like screen captures from a video, not actual photos. The time stamp in the bottom left corner told him the date and time the video was taken as well as the exact minute and second this photo was grabbed. But where was the actual video? Immediately Dean began digging through boxes and piles.

“I’m just gonna shower, then I’ll be out of here.” Anna said and Dean gave some vague response. Where the hell was the video?

When Anna came out to say goodbye, Dean showed her to the door, but already his mind was gone, immersed in his work. But he still couldn’t find the actual video. A call to Gabriel – however painful it was – told him what he needed to know: the video was at the city archives and they’d only used it to confirm that Bela had, indeed been at the parade. He’d then demanded to know what Dean had found, but he was quick to reassure Gabriel that it was probably nothing. Gabriel hid his disappointment well.

If by ‘well’ you mean ending the call with, “Okay, thanks for the update, prick!”

But Dean’s mind was already ahead of him and after a quick shower he was tearing off to the archives. He didn’t have much hope that he would find something, but just the fact that there was video footage out there of Bela just hours before she disappeared had to mean something, right?

The archivist there was attractive and he flirted weakly, as was his trademark. She seemed reluctant to just let him walk out of there with the file, but when he reminded her that he was working for the Milton family – the family that basically built Haven from the ground up – and flashed her his most dazzling smile well, how could she say no?

 

Zachariah was feeling pretty damned pleased with himself lately. He was up for a promotion, which meant he could start planning that vacation for next month, and he had access to the sweetest ass he’d had in a long time virtually whenever he wanted. So when he got the call from the boy asking to meet him at his apartment again, Zachariah was happy to make some arrangements. 

Everything was still set up from last time and, though Zachariah thought that Castiel would probably be much more willing this time, there was just something about watching the boy struggle in handcuffs and chains that really got his blood going.

When he opened the door and saw Castiel standing there, looking all surly and adorable, Zachariah just barely smiled. “Well, come on in, Castiel. I don’t have all night.” Oh, the look Castiel gave him could have curdled milk.

“Now, Castiel,” Zachariah announced as he closed the door. “I don’t want to have to knock you out this time, but—“

“Stop talking.” Suddenly there was a jolt in his neck, like the worst case of static shock he’d ever gotten and Zachariah’s eyes blew wide open before the floor came rushing up to meet him and everything went black.

 

When he woke, his mouth was covered with a strip of duct tape, and he couldn’t move. After a brief struggle he realized that his arms where screwed down into the floor, feet bound together and restrained in much the same way, and he was completely naked. A pillow was propped under his head and he could just barely lift it up to look around. What he saw made the blood in his veins run cold.

Standing at the TV was a figure clad all in black with long pale arms hanging loosely at his side. Castiel. Who else could it be? Immediately, Zachariah started struggling, shouting on the other side of the tape, hollering for the little homo to let him go immediately. There wasn’t very much fear in him, not yet.

“Shh, this is my favorite part.”

And that was when Zachariah noticed the video playing on his 40” flat screen. He could hear mostly screaming as the Castiel in the video struggled against the bonds and the Zachariah in the video climbed on top of the writhing boy. Zachariah watched himself hold the struggling Castiel down, shouting at him that he should be thankful for what he gets, thankful that someone finally wanted him before the real Castiel muted it.

“To be honest, I wasn’t expecting that. Should have known better.”Castiel finally turned towards him and all Zachariah could see was the blue of the man’s eyes and felt something like terror creeping up his spine.

“Do you want to know how I did it?” Castiel seemed almost excited, grabbing up his bag and standing over Zachariah. He flinched away, but Castiel forced his attention by shocking him with a taser. “Look. See? This button, it’s actually a wide-angle fibre optic lens. Got it from a friend.” He watched Castiel set the bag down, whimpering behind the duct tape.

That was when Castiel dug around in the bag. “So here’s what going to happen.” Zachariah choked on shouts as he saw the device Castiel was pulling out, a long steel rod shaped like a cock. “You might want to lie still for this. It’s going to hurt.”

There was no lube, no gentleness as Castiel shoved Zachariah’s bent legs to the side and how was it such a small body could be so strong, Zachariah wondered briefly, mind dumb with fear. Then he had no more room for thought as Castiel shoved the rod into his hole (which, despite Zachariah’s active sex life, had never been penetrated before). It only went about half way until Castiel couldn’t force it in anymore. So he stood and used a well aimed kick to shove it the rest of the way. Zachariah howled with pain.

It felt like being split open and Zachariah tried to force it out, but a thick ring around the base kept the rod inside him tightly. He hollered and hollered, but Castiel only looked down at him in disgust.

“Now, I am going to talk and you are going to listen, understand?” Zachariah was still screaming, sobbing. “Look at me, Zachariah. Look at me.” It’s over, his whole life, his career it’s all over. There was another shock – a taser - and he forced his eyes open, forced himself to look at Castiel even though all he wanted to do was get the thing out of him.

“I’m going to propose a new deal. Listen closely. Are you listening?” Zachariah managed a nod. “Good.” Castiel crouched down beside Zachariah’s head and his eyes were so wide and so blue, nothing warm in them at all. Just cold blue. “When you can walk again, you and I are going to go to my bank. You are going to give full control of my money back to me. Once a month, you will write a report telling your superiors that I am improving, that I’m becoming very sociable, the very model of a normal human being. Understand?” Zachariah nodded. Anything, anything to get out of here. “Good. Within six months you are going to petition to get my status as mentally, socially and emotionally incompetent removed. Understand? Good.“ The blue of the man’s eyes was endless and shook Zachariah to his core. “This video shows you raping a mentally unstable young man. If this video gets out, I think you’ll be the one institutionalized, wouldn’t you agree? If you fail to do these things I’ve described to you, I will upload this video to the internet and see that it reaches every single person you have ever met. Understand? Good. If I die or if you try to kill me or try to escape from our deal, this video will be uploaded to the internet and sent to everyone you have ever met. Understand? Good.”

Castiel stood, talking as he moved just out of Zachariah’s line of sight. “Just a few more things. Made copies of all your keys. I’ll be checking in on you, Zachariah. I’ll be watching you. And if I ever find you in here with a boy or a girl that you have coerced into being here, it won’t just be the video you have to worry about. Look here, Zachariah.” He craned his head and suddenly there was a gun pointed at his head. His torn ass clenched around the rod as his whole body went still with fear. “I will kill you, Zachariah. I will kill you.”

The eyes that stared over the long length of arm and gun were icy blue, focused and cruel. Zachariah could feel the vomit swelling up in his mouth, foul and bitter. The gun was lowered and tucked into the back of Castiel’s pants. Zachariah nearly fainted, probably would have if Castiel hadn’t given him a fierce kick in the side.

“Wake up. You can’t pass out yet. I know this won’t be easy for you. So I’m going to do you a favor. I’ll make sure you can never forget.”

A pillow was tossed over his hips before Castiel was sitting on him, a strange device held tight in his grip. It was only once the man was digging in that he realized what it was. “Lie still. You don’t want me to have to do this twice, do you, Zachariah?”

Zachariah couldn’t stay awake for all of it, he fainted after the first few lines. It was only the next morning, when he woke and was able to release himself from the zip ties with the wire clippers that had been left near his hands that Zachariah saw what had been written in big, black letters on his skin.

_I AM A RAPIST, SADISTIC PIG._

The quality of the video wasn’t as great as something you might be able to find these days in friggin’ cell phones but it was good enough.

In it, the cameraman was high above the parades crowd, possibly on a balcony overlooking the street. There was shouting and cheers and hollering, but by the third watch, Dean knew that the sound wouldn’t be helpful. What he was more concerned with was Bela, standing there with her friends, waving at the people riding by in hot rods and convertibles. It had taken a while to find the point where she arrived, a little late, but she seemed happy to be out and about with her friends. The smile on her face was very pretty and lit her up like a Christmas tree or something. Dean could tell just from that brief moment just what Gabriel had admired in her.

But then something seemed to change. One minute, Bela was watching the parade, waving wildly at a car that went by – perhaps one of her friends from school was in it – turning to watch the vehicle go. Then she suddenly seemed to freeze and, if it weren’t for the fact that everyone around he kept going, Dean might have thought there was something wrong with the video. No, she’d seen something maybe even someone and she had frozen. Dean wasn’t very sociable, but he liked to think he was still very good at reading people and Bela’s face just screamed fear. She was terrified.

And then hours later, she was gone. 


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Dean answered the door at eight in the morning on Saturday, the last thing he expected was to see Sam there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the novel/film "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."  
> Thanks so much for reading so far!  
> Kayleigh, I love you! <3

**CHAPTER NINE**

When Dean answered the door at eight in the morning on Saturday, the last thing he expected was to see Sam there.

“Sammy? What are you doing here?”

“Nice to see you too, Dean.” Sam said as he barged in with his huge frame. “And don’t call me Sammy.”

In his defense, the pounding on his door had woken him up, so maybe Dean wasn’t at his most polite. “Sorry, dude, I just wasn’t expecting company. What’s up? Everything okay?”

“What? Oh, yeah everything’s fine. Jess and I are just on our way up state to visit her parents in Rochester, so I figured we’d swing by and see how you were.”

“Jess is here?” Dean went back to the door, but Sam stopped him.

“No, no, she’s gone shopping. Said something about small towns like this having the greatest antique shops. She’s gonna swing by and pick me up later.” Sam was barely even looking at Dean now, his focus turned completely to the wall of research Dean had stacked up. “Jesus, man what is all this?”

Dean laughed, clapping a hand to his little brother’s shoulder. “Dude, you don’t even want to know. Come on, I’ll make you lunch. Hope you like microwaved hot dogs.”

An hour later, Dean had filled Sam in on what he could, still sticking with the biography story, but somehow he knew that Sam didn’t quite believe him. But Sam still went along with the story as if he believed it and listened patiently. It brought back memories of long hours spent researching, of Sam always dropping by with food and beer and moral support. A couple times, he’d been the one to point out that one piece of information Dean always missed.

Like now, for instance.

“So if you’re writing a biography on Gabriel, what are you doing with these?” Dean glanced at the paper in Sam’s hand and saw it was a photocopied version of the list of names and numbers that had been in Bela’s journal.

_Constance - 32016_

_L.S. - 32109_

_L.R. - 32018_

_Lenore - 30112_

_K.S. - 32027_

“What do you mean?”

“Well, they’re bible codes.” Dean stared at Sam blankly and it only made Sam huff and roll his eyes. “Look, I’ll show you.”

It took some digging around, but Sam managed to find a bible, Bela’s bible. “See, the three is for the book, Leviticus. The first one is twenty-sixteen:  _‘If a woman approaches any animal and lies with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.’_ ” Sam frowned, his face twisting in confusion and maybe disgust. “What the hell dude?”

“Give me that.” Sam was thankfully silent as Dean went through each of the numbers one by one and, sure enough, each one matched up with a verse from the bible. There were even earmarked pages, like Bela had spent a lot of time going over those pages. “Sam, you’re a friggin’ genius.”

“I am? I mean. I am. Yes.” A pause, then, “So why am I a genius?”

“I don’t know yet,” Dean laughed, still staring at the bible codes. But what did the names mean?

When he looked up Sam was grinning, “I guess that’s my cue.”

“No, dude you don’t have to go, this can wait.”

“It’s all right, Jess is already outside.” Sam held up his cell and gestured vaguely to the door. “She says hi. She’d come in, but her parents expect us to be there in a few hours.”

“Oh, okay. Yeah. That’s fine.” Sometimes, like this, it hurt a little see his little brother all grown up and having a life without Dean’s help. “Give her my love.”

“Yeah, I will.” Dean followed Sam to the door, but there was no hug, just a clap on the back and then Sam was disappearing down the driveway. There was a pang as he watched him drive away, but it was one that Dean had grown used to over the years. He shut the door quietly and went to feed the cat.

 

Three hours, three cigarettes and two fingers of whiskey later, Dean had found only one pair of initials that matched any murders or disappearances in the town’s history. It was also the only murder or disappearance that matched any of the names on the list.

But why did it have to be this one.

It took one more shot of whiskey for Dean to get up the courage to finally call. The man picked up after the second ring.

“What?”

“Hey, Bobby, it’s Dean.”

“I know. I can read, idjit.”

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry, I guess.”

“What do you want, boy?”

“I got a question to ask you, but uh. It’s—well, I’ll just ask, but don’t hang up on me, all right?”

“I ain’t making any promises. What’s your question?”

“How did your wife, Karen die?”

There was a long pause during which Dean held his breath. But when Bobby answered his voice was more weary than angry.

“Why you digging that up now? Why do you need to know?”

“I think… I think it might have something to do with Bela Milton’s disappearance.”

Another tense, long silence, and Dean found that his hands were sweating while he waited for the old man to answer.

“My wife, she was. Well, there ain’t no easy way to say it – she was raped. Found her tied up in a local’s barn. Several blows to the head with a rock was what killed her.” Bobby spoke with the voice of a man who had gone over the police reports a thousand times, reciting from memory.

_A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you must be put to death. You are to stone them; their blood will be on their own heads._

“And Karen, she – uh – was a palm reader? Part-time?”

Bobby laughed, broken and quiet. “Yeah, she was real into that stuff. She mostly did it for free. I always thought it was a crock pot of bullshit, but she… She really liked it.”

“Okay. Okay, thanks Bobby. I’m real sorry to have to bring this up.”

“That’s all right, boy. It was a long time ago. Long, long time ago.”

They hung up and Dean sat back at his desk, staring down at the photocopied list of names before he crossed out the last one.

_K.S. – 32027_

Karen Singer. One down, four to go.

It was only when Dean went outside for another cigarette that he noticed the flashing lights up at the main house. That did not look good.

When he came around the front, he saw a stretcher being loaded into the back of an ambulance and a few people standing around. The first one he came to was Meg.

“What the hell happened?”

Her jaw was clenched tight and she was struggling to hold back tears. “Gabriel. He collapsed again.”

“Again? What do you mean again?”

“Didn’t he tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“Oh my God, you don’t know.” Meg’s eyes were wide and doe-like, almost compassionate.

“How about you tell me?”

“He has Chronic Leukemia. The doctors keep saying there’s not much they can do for him now. Fucking assholes.”

Suddenly things began to make a lot of sense. Balthazar and Azazel were following behind the stretcher and Dean jogged over to meet them.

“Is he gonna be okay?”

Balthazar was standing with his hands fisted into the pockets of his overcoat, watching with a tense expression as they loaded Gabriel into the ambulance and Dean could see from there that the man was unconscious. It must have been bad.

It was Azazel that answered him. “We don’t know yet. He’s been sick lately, but he’s been sick before. I don’t know. I have to go.” He gestured to the ambulance and Dean nodded vaguely.

“Yeah, of course. Go.”

He, Meg and Balthazar all stood there watching the ambulance drive away. Once it was gone, Meg let out a curse and stomped away to her house. Then it was only Balthazar and Dean standing on the front porch of the mansion, shivering.

“Do you think he’ll be okay?” Dean asked.

Balthazar lifted a shoulder in response. “Don’t know. It’s happened before. He’s pulled through before.”

Dean nodded. Balthazar turned to go into the house, but Dean stopped him.

“This is probably a bad time to ask, but… Do you know what Gabriel has on Roman?”

“Well, aren’t you the little bastard? No, I don’t know. But if Gabriel dies, it shall be my first priority to find out for you. Good night.”

Dean winced. Yeah, that went swell.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Jack Daniels’. How utterly barbaric.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the novel/film "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."  
> Thanks so much for reading so far!  
> Kayleigh, I love you! <3

**CHAPTER TEN**

Two days later, Balthazar stopped by the cabin to update Dean and to drink his whiskey.

“Jack Daniels’. How utterly barbaric.” Somehow Dean thought that maybe he wasn’t quite forgiven yet.

But Dean decided he was man enough to take it. “So how is he?”

“Pneumonia, they say. Again. They’re going to keep him in the hospital until he’s better, got him hooked up to all sorts of machines. Best doctors money can buy and they can’t even cure Pneumonia. Bastards.” Balthazar polished the glass off and moved to help himself to another. Dean didn’t argue. “Look, he woke long enough to ask me if you’ve found anything. It’s all he cares about these days, finding out what happened to Bela. But I think we know how that will turn out, eh ol’ boy?”

“I don’t know about that. I may have found something.”

The glass stopped just at Balthazar’s lips. “Are you serious? My god, you’re serious. What have you found?”

Dean hesitated, “Look, I don’t want to get too excited, just yet. Last time I thought I had solid info I ended up with an empty bank account.” Balthazar _laughed_ and sipped at his drink. “I need an assistant.”

“Gabriel said to give you whatever you need. Actually, I think he said something like, ‘If he asks for seventy-six virgins, I expect you to get it to him, Balthy.’”

“Tempting, but I think I’ll just stick with the research assistant. I can start looking A.S.A.P.”

“No need, I know the perfect one. He did the background check on you.”

“Background check?”

“Of course. You didn’t think we’d hire you without checking under your bed first, did you?”

“No, uh, I guess that makes sense. Do you have the report?”

“Ha, nice try, pretty boy, but I can’t give that to you.”

There was a long pause as Dean tried to work about how best to get his hands on that damn report. Finally, he decided on the simplest and fastest manner: he stood and began to carefully remove pages of research from the wall.

There was a sigh behind him, but Dean kept going.

“All right, all right! You bastard. I’ll see what I can do.”

 

“Dean Winchester? Mrs. Mills will see you now.”

The office he was led into wasn’t that big for what he pictured a CEO of a security company to have. There was the classic window view of course and a door, but it could have belonged to anyone. The woman behind the desk had dark, short hair clipped to her chin and was dressed simply in jeans and a zip-up hoodie. Her eyes were dark and wide, not stern naturally, but he could see the potential for it. He liked her already. Shame.

“Mr. Winchester! Please, sit down. Drink?”

“No, thanks. And call me Dean.” Dean sat down across from her and almost felt bad for what he was about to bring up. “I’m here about this.”

He opened the folder he’d brought with him. The cover page read:

_Report:_

_Dean Winchester_

_February 22 nd, 2012_

_By_

_Castiel Novak_

“How did you get that?” Now Ms. Mills sounded worried.

“Balthazar Allard gave it to me. Now, I’ve tried to find this investigator of yours, but I can’t find anything about him at all.”

“Well, you wouldn’t. His information is confidential.” Now Ms. Mills was on the defensive and yup, definitely feeling bad for her now.

“Why?”

Mills’ jaw clenched and she stared at him for a long time before asking, “Why does it matter?”

“Because it’s pretty obvious the means that he used are illegal. There is information in this report that not even my closest friends, not even my _brother_ know and I raised that kid.”

Yeah, she definitely was not happy. “I’m sorry, but it’s against company policy for me to give out the information of any of our researchers.”

“Okay. How about this?” Dean grabbed a pen and one of her cards off the desk, scribbling down a name. “This is my brother who is also my lawyer. He’ll be calling you. This document is illegal and was funded by your company.”

Mills gave a frustrated shake of her head and sat forward, leaning her elbows on the desk. “The reason you can’t find any information on him is because he is a ward of the state and his records are sealed. I’m breaking about a hundred or so rules here so you better appreciate this. Before I tell you anything, you have to understand this: he’s had a very rough life.”

 

The apartment building Jody Mills had given him the address for was about what he expected for Queens. Not too shabby, but not exactly condo-living either. The place didn’t even have a buzzer system set up. Sketchy.

It was ten in the morning and Dean had been damn patient if he did say so himself. When Mills had given him the address, his first instinct had been to fly over and bang the guys’ door down right away. But Dean had kept his cool and waited until the next morning, a Saturday, before arriving on the guys’ doorstep.

It took some time after he knocked before he finally heard movement, shuffling at the door.

“Who is it?” A deep voice called out, one that could have shaken mountains with its timbre. The guy must be huge.

“Dean Winchester.” As expected, there was silence. “Can I come in?”

“Not a good time. I’m not decent.”

“I just want to talk, promise.” Another long pause and Dean was beginning to think that the guy was ignoring him when the door finally opened and he could see just the slim line of a face and one bright blue eye.

“What do you want?” Jesus, that voice was deep and the guy only seemed to come up a few inches lower than Dean.

“Just to talk,” Dean assured. He suddenly felt like he was dealing with a small animal, one that if you moved too suddenly, he’d go skittering away. “I brought burgers?”

Opaque blues eyes flashed up to meet his own and Dean found he couldn’t look away.

That is, until the door slammed in his face.

Dean rolled his eyes, already turning to leave when he heard the sound of the chain being released and the door slowly opening and Dean took that as invitation enough, barging in and shutting and locking the door behind him. This was Queens, after all.

The guy was exactly and yet not at all what Dean expected. He was skinny, but not at all frail looking; Dean could see the lines of muscles in his legs and arms since the guy was standing there in a pair of briefs and a long black shirt that simply read, _FUCK OFF_. His face looked like it had been chiseled by hand with a broad jaw and a wide mouth. But man, those eyes; guy had the eyes you only saw in those old renaissance paintings of angels. He was handsome in a classical way, his features only sharpened and defined by the piercings and the tattoos.

But Dean was totally being objective here and not ogling at all. A rustle from the bedroom made Dean crane around the guy and look down the hall where the bedroom door was open. There was a blonde girl rolling around in the sheets.

“How about you tell your girlfriend to vacate so we can talk?” Dean spotted the kitchen and headed for it, glad that the guy seemed to be some kind of neat freak. He knew from personal experience that most people who did what Castiel did weren’t always the cleanest. He set the food down on the small dining table and pulled off his coat only to find Castiel still standing in the middle of the entryway, staring at him with those wide blue eyes.

“Come on, dude, we need to talk.” Dean began riffling through the cupboards, searching for plates.

“Who do you think you are?”

That made Dean stop and turn with a grin. “I’m the guy you know better than anyone. Now, go on.”

That seemed to wake him up and he turned stiffly down the hall. There was a rumble of voices as Castiel presumably told his girl to leave, maybe they argued, but Dean couldn’t know for sure. It wasn’t any of his business anyway, no matter how blue someone’s eyes were.

He was setting down their coffee and laying out the burger a shuffle of movement made him raise his eyes.

Castiel’s girlfriend was tall and slim, almost intimidating in her manner. Sharp cheekbones highlighted her face and her blond hair was pulled back away from her face. Even rumpled she looked stern.

“’Bye!” Dean called out. She only glared at him. Dean had to lean a bit to see around the wall that separated the kitchen from the living room, but he saw Castiel kiss her softly, saw his lips move in an apology before he was shutting the door behind her. Dean quickly turned his attention back to the food.

Castiel came into the kitchen and stared him with that weird piercing gaze, like he was trying to give him a damn x-ray.

“Dude. Chill out. Sit down.” Dean moved to do the same, plopping down in one of the chairs and unwrapping his burger. Castiel only inched closer and Dean rolled his eyes.

“I read your report.” If possible, the guy’s eyes blew open even wider. “Yeah, pretty interesting stuff. Most of it came from my own computer at home. I’d really love to know how the hell you managed that. Gotta say that it wasn’t very fun to read.”

Castiel kept inching forward as Dean spoke until he reached the chair and sank down into it stiffly. “It wasn’t meant to be ‘fun.’”

“Yeah, I could tell. I really should be suing the shit out of you, but—“ Dean shrugged, letting his burger drop back to the plate for now. “I need your help with something.” Castiel was still watching him, like his eyes were glued to Dean’s face or something. It would have been damn creepy if Dean had been able to force himself to look away for more than a few seconds.

“Cas – can I call you Cas?” No answer, just the same wide-eyed stare. That was a yes then. “I need you to help me catch a killer.”

 

Half an hour later, Dean had unpacked basically all the research he’d brought with him and Castiel was sitting beside him on the couch with a pile of photocopied newspaper articles and the bible entries in his lap, flicking through them quickly.

“So I figured out that Karen Singer is K.S. and that the way she died corresponds to the bible verse, but I can’t match any of the other four with local women or with what any of them might have to do with Bela Milton. Karen Singer was killed before Bela could barely walk. I—Where are you going?”

“Pack.”

 

When Dean parted with Castiel in New York, there was no big fanfare. Castiel promised that he’d come to Haven in the next few days, once his preliminary research on the other four girls was done.  He’d said little else to Dean before he tore off and Dean was left to shrug and head back to Haven.

When he returned everything seemed fine until he realized that the stray cat was inside. Dean never let the cat stay inside when he was gone.

Crap.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That had been his plan. And it had gone fine until he actually got to the hospital and met Ruby for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the novel/film "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."  
> Thanks so much for reading so far!  
> Kayleigh, let me have adopted babies with you.

**CHAPTER ELEVEN**

The day after he arrived back in Haven, Dean made a trip over to the Haven County Hospital to pay Gabriel a visit. He had a feeling that his employer might want to know that not only had someone in his own family killed Bela, but possibly at least five women if Dean’s guess was right.

At least, that had been his plan. And it had gone fine until he actually got to the hospital and met Ruby for the first time.

“What’s he doing here?” Her arms were crossed over her chest and the look she gave him could have sent him to hell ahead of schedule. He recognized her immediately from the pictures Gabriel had given him: dark hair, almost black, thick eyebrows, angular face, and a crooked sneer. Yup, definitely Ruby, wife of Lucifer and mother to Azazel and Bela.

“Nice to meet you too. I’m—“

“I know who you are. That isn’t what I asked. I asked what the hell you’re doing here?” She barely glanced at him, turning her gaze instead to Balthazar, who had met Dean at the front door to guide him in.

“Gabe wants to see him.”

“Well, _Gabe_ is sick right now, I don’t think he has time to waste on libelists.”

“Mother.” Azazel stepped forward and wrapped his hands around his mother’s forearms. “Leave him alone. Gabe hired him, it’s what he wants.”

“Yeah, well maybe not all of us like a fraud to be chronicling the whole damn family. But if we ever need one, we know who to call.” Ruby shrugged out of her son’s grip and stalked out of the waiting room.

“Dean, I’m sorry—“ Azazel began, but Dean cut him off.

“No, it’s cool. I’ll just—“ Dean left feeling anger thick in his gut.

 

Azazel stopped by that night.

“Listen, I’m sorry for my mother. She’s always been a bit rough around the edges ever since Gabriel banished her to the far side of the estate. Imagine what she would be like if he had cut her off from the money too.” They laughed, but it was forced and awkward.

It was only when they stepped outside for a cigarette that Azazel got into what he really came there for.

“I know that my uncle said that you are supposed to report to Balthazar, but… If you find anything about my sister, will you let me know?” Azazel turned those brown-yellow eyes on him pleadingly.

How could Dean refuse a request like that?

“I’ll do what I can.” It was the diplomatic answer and if it didn’t satisfy the guy, he never had time to find out.

A motorcycle was roaring its way up the driveway and Dean smiled, knowing it had to be Castiel. Sure enough, the rider took off his helmet and there was that perpetually messy black hair and piercing blue eyes.

“Hey, Cas. Need a hand?”

“Got it.”

“Hello, I’m Azazel Mil—“

“I know. Hello.”

And just like that Cas was disappearing into the cabin with not so much as a friendly smile.

An awkward silence filled the air before Azazel finally asked, “Is he your, ah—“

“Assistant.”

“Right. Good. Well, I’ll leave you to it then. Goodnight.”

 

By the time Dean got back inside, Castiel had already made himself comfortable. His bags were tossed haphazardly on the couch and his laptop was open on top of Dean’s own. He had a moment to wonder if that might harm the laptops, stacking them on top of each other before Castiel started speaking.

“I found the other four girls plus five more that Bela missed.” Dean was staring at Cas in wide-eyed shock wondering how the hell the guy had managed to figure that out when he realized Cas had been waving pages in his face. “You were right about Karen Singer in 1978. I’ve also found the others.” Castiel was clicking through his computer and brought up scanned images of police reports. “The first entry, ‘ _Constance – 32016,’_ : Constance Welch, Jericho, California. Murdered in 1980. The subject was found in a barn, raped and sodomized with farm tools, carotid artery slit open with a knife. A cow was also killed in the same manner, minus the rape and sodomy. Leviticus, verse twenty, line 16.”

“Yeah, I know that one, ‘ _If a woman approaches any animal and lies with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.’_ Do you think she really--?”

Cas gave him a look.

“You’re right, doesn’t matter. Next?”

“‘ _L.S. – 32109’:_ Lori Sorenson of Ankey, Iowa. Murdered in 1982. Burned, presumably raped, various stab wound were later found. Leviticus verse twenty-one, line nineteen.”

“’ _And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire.’_ And was she…?”

“The daughter of a priest? Yes. I don’t know if she was a harlot.”

“Uh—Okay.” Cas barely gave him a moment to let anything sink in, just drove onwards.

“’ _L.R. – 32018’_ : Layla Rourke. La Grange, Nebraska. Murdered in 1983. Raped. Multiple stab wounds. Suffocated with feminine hygiene products. Leviticus twenty-eighteen.”

“Oh, fuck. ‘ _And if a man shall lie with a woman having her sickness, and shall uncover her nakedness; he hath discovered her fountain, and she hath uncovered the fountain of her blood: and both of them shall be cut off from among their people.’_ What the fuck?”

“Yes. ‘ _Lenore – 30112_.’ Lenore Jacobs, Red Lodge, Montana. Murdered in 1985. Raped then hacked into pieces, presumably while still alive. The pieces were then burned. Leviticus one-twelve.”

“’ _And he shall cut it into his pieces, with his head and his fat: and the priest shall lay them in order on the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar,’_ Jesus, Cas, what the hell is going on here?”

“I don’t know. The other’s I found – “

“What do these girls have to do with Bela though? What could she possibly want with a bunch of murdered girls in the 80s? She was just a baby then.”

“They do have one thing in common—“

“What?”

“Well, she was looking for them.”

Dean’s head fell into his hands then, like it was suddenly too heavy for him to hold up. There was some rustling around, but Dean couldn’t even bring himself to look up. There was just too much information to process. What the fuck had he stumbled into? What the fuck was this family doing?

Something cold and wet bumped into his forearm. Dean raised his head to see a slim hand holding out a small glass with amber liquid inside.

“Thanks.” He accepted the glass and looked up to see Castiel standing there with one of his cigarettes hanging out of his mouth. “You shouldn’t smoke in—you know what, never mind. Can you hand me one?” Castiel didn’t answer, just finished lighting the one in his mouth and held it out for Dean to take between his lips.

“Thanks.” Dean was definitely not blushing. Dean Winchester certainly did not blush, especially in situations like this.

They sat in silence for several moments.

“Fuck.”

“Yes.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was something magnetic about Dean Winchester.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the novel/film "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."  
> Thanks so much for reading so far!  
> Kayleigh, let me have adopted babies with you.

**CHAPTER TWELVE**

Castiel always woke early, especially in places he was unfamiliar with. He’d spent most of the morning going over his files, but he already knew all the information they held. So that’s when he started going through Dean’s files. At first it started out innocently enough, going through the videos and photos of Bela that Dean had scanned, then he was reading through his notes on the investigation. Then he was in Dean’s personal photos. Then his email accounts. Then the diary entries and old articles he’d written, stories never published.

Much of it Castiel already knew, but that didn’t stop him from looking anyway. There was something magnetic about Dean Winchester. He’d been staring at one picture in particular, where Dean is laughing and smiling with a young man that Castiel knew to be Dean’s brother, Sam. They were both much younger, standing on the side of a long empty road with Dean’s Impala next to them. Dean’s head was thrown back with the force of his laugh and Sam was bent forward, clutching his stomach, and Castiel wondered if he’d laughed so hard his stomach started to hurt. He wondered who had taken the picture. His attention was drawn to the ragged brown leather jacket that Dean is wearing. He wonders if it once belonged to John Winchester and why Dean doesn’t wear it anymore.

He didn’t stop until he heard a stirring in the bedroom and looked up through the glass doors to see Dean climbing out of bed and pulling on pants and a sweater that he picked up from the floor. Castiel hit a series of keys and all the windows containing Dean’s personal files disappeared until he was left with just the investigation notes, the photos, and the videos.

“What are you doing?” Dean’s voice was still heavy with sleep. Castiel immediately liked it.

“Going over your notes.”

Dean’s hair was ruffled with sleep and he carried a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. “Do I want to even know how you managed to open them?”

There’s no answer, just a _look_. ‘Don’t be a child,’ that look said.

“Uh-huh.” Dean finally emerged from the bedroom and padded barefoot into the kitchen. “You made coffee?”

“Yes.”

“Huh. Thanks.”

Castiel heard the sound of a cup being poured and gave Dean a moment to drink. “It’s remarkable what you found with the video.”

“What? Oh. Yeah. Not sure how much more we can learn from it though.”

“Yes. It’s too bad you don’t have her photos.”

“What? Whose?”

Castiel didn’t answer; just fasts-forward through the video then presses play. Bela was just turning her head, the smile fading from her face when a flash goes off over her head.

“Son of a bitch...”

“You swear a lot.”

“Yeah—What? Yeah, I guess. But fuck! Look at that. Who is that? Hang on.” Dean set the coffee down and bent to reach arms on either side of Castiel. Immediately Castiel flinched away, curling up small in the chair. Dean hardly even noticed, his focus on the computer before him.

“Sorry. Sorry. Hang on.” Dean began clicking away, closing down pages and accidentally reopening new ones. It was like going to a retirement home and watching them try to open a jar. Castiel had to look away.

“Okay. Got it.” Dean had slowed the video down and they watched as each frame ticked away and there it was. The flash of a camera pointing right in the direction Bela was looking.

“Fuck.”

“Yes.”

It took some digging, but they managed to find the tail end of the video where the woman who took the picture is seen getting into one of the parade cars.

“What’s that name?”

“Something about carpentry.”

“P-R-something-something—Does that say Prosperity? Yeah, it does, doesn’t it? Okay. Okay, yeah that’s good. See if you can figure out the whole name and we can track down where and who she is.” Dean seemed fully awake now. Castiel watched him grab a cigarette, already lighting on his way to step outside.

And then Dean shouted, “Fuck!”

Castiel was up and dashing for the door before his mind really realized what was happening. He looked first to Dean and saw him hunched over against the brick wall of the cabin, breathing hard. But he seemed fine otherwise. Which gave Castiel a chance to take in what had caused Dean to react so.

It must have been the cat that Dean had mentioned in passing the night before, but Castiel had never seen. Well, now he saw it; it’s legs and arms had been cut off and laid out precisely, shaping a cross. Or perhaps an inverted cross if the message was meant for them, which Castiel was certain it was. He ran back into the house and grabbed the nearest camera he could find – Dean’s.

The image was grotesque and violent – someone was sending them a message. Which meant that they were getting close. 


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They were getting into dangerous territory now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the novel/film "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."  
> Thanks so much for reading so far!  
> Kayleigh, let me have adopted babies with you.

**CHAPTER THIRTEEN**

Dean clearly hadn’t wanted to, but Castiel refused to let him forget that they had a lead now and they needed to follow up soon. He didn’t mention that someone must be on to them now because he could tell that Dean already knew. They were getting into dangerous territory now.

But Castiel had managed to track down the name of the carpentry company listed on the back of the car the woman with the camera had gotten into. The company belonged to Stark Construction, also a subsidy of Milton & Sons, Inc. and a quick Google search revealed their headquarters to be a couple hours outside of Haven and even further upstate.

It was easy to decide who would go and pay Mrs. Stark a visit and who would be going pick up surveillance equipment. Dean had informed Castiel that the grounds were already equipped with cameras, but Castiel’s only reply to that was a scoff.

“Apparently not enough if they were able to miss someone swinging a dead cat around.”

Castiel hadn’t meant it to be funny, but Dean still laughed. Castiel could only deduce that he had recovered from the death of his pet quickly.

The drive back into New York City gave Castiel much to think about. Mostly, he thought about Dean. How talking with him was much like talking to Joshua, like he didn’t have to worry about being mocked or judged or used. About what was so fascinating about the man to him. By all accounts, he was not extraordinary except in all the ways that he was. There were few men in the world who were no one else, no masks, no fake concern, just them. A pure and real human being. It was intriguing, yes, but also frightening.

Castiel’s first stop was the basement of Mills Security where he presented his ID cards and asked for four mountable, night vision security cameras. Of course, Ed and Harry were only to eager to not only give him a difficult time for having zero paperwork or proof of authorization, but were also eager to ask for his opinions on the most recent conspiracy theories they had thought up.

In the end, it had been a threat that he would call Jody himself if they didn’t shut up and give him the equipment that finally had him on his next errand with the cameras in his bag and strapped to his back tightly.

His stop back at his apartment was very brief, only picking up extra clothes and his gun. And, of course, checking on how Zachariah Adler had been doing on writing his reports. He skimmed through the most recent before shutting everything down and heading back out again.

 

Zachariah closed up his office with hands that didn’t shake (anymore). He waved to the secretaries like he always did before leaving for the night as he waited for the elevator to arrive. He could sense someone standing just behind him, but paid no attention – it was five in the afternoon and there were many people heading home.

It wasn’t until he got into the elevator that he realized how grave that mistake had been.

“Zachariah.” The hooded figure turned and Zachariah cursed himself, wondering how he could not have noticed Castiel’s distinct form standing right there next to him. Immediately, he was pressing himself back into the corner, trying not to look as scared as he felt. But that only made Castiel move in closer.

“How have you been, Zachariah?”

“F-Fine—“

“I read your most recent report. I found it…” Zachariah could feel himself choking as he waited for that final word, “Lacking. It lacks enthusiasm. I hope the next one is better.”

“I—“

“Stop talking.”

Zachariah nods, eyes dropping to the floor immediately, though he can still feel Castiel’s ice cold gaze.

“Start looking for a therapist you can bribe to agree with your findings. I’m sure that it won’t be too hard for a man like you.”

He nods.

“And stop visiting tattoo removal sites or I’ll start getting creative. Maybe I’ll do it here,” Zachariah’s eyes went cross-eyed to look at the finger pointing as his forehead. “Or here.” That finger was now pointed at his crotch and Zachariah didn’t fight the whimper that slipped out.

“Have faith, Zachariah. Remember.”

He nods, but Castiel is already gone and Zachariah is standing there feeling warm, wet piss sliding down his legs.

 

Dean arrived back at the cabin in one piece – somewhat anyway. Maggie Stark was a damn hard woman to deal with. He’d spoken briefly to her maid before the woman herself came in that she’d been that way ever since Don Stark died, like he took a piece of her with him. It almost made Dean feel sorry for her. If she wasn’t such a complete witch, personality wise.

Maggie’s heart-shaped face was probably what made one think that she was kind, but it was her eyes that had a cold look to him. She had been crass and surly right from the moment Dean sat down, like how dare he ask her questions.

She’d been nothing, but condescending and rude right from the get-go. He’d finally slammed the pictures of Bela at the parade and there was Maggie standing just behind the girl, next to her husband. “This is a sixteen year old girl. Hours after this picture was taken and you took your picture, she was murdered. Now I am asking you for help. Do you have these pictures or not?”

Maggie had been silent for a long time.

“Of course, I do. My God. We were on our honeymoon.” She gave him a look that said she didn’t quiet appreciate his attitude, but she did get up and move to the bookcase, pulling down one photo album. “Here. Take what you need. Do let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.”

Dean was damn thankful to see her gone. In the end, there had only been one picture he needed. The picture was blurry, like Maggie had been bumped into when she took it, but Dean could clearly see what must have been the back of Bela’s head. She was looking across the street at… a full line of other spectators. Dean sighed, squinting down at the picture. There was no way of knowing who it could be, but at least it was something. Dean took that picture, but left the others and said good riddance to Maggie Stark.

He had planned on going straight to the cabin when he got in, but once he parked there, his mind felt too jumbled to really be able to handle small confined spaces. So he started walking.

Gabriel had pointed out which house had been Lucifer’s before he died and the children moved in with him. When Dean stepped inside, it was like going back in time. Practically everything had been left where it had been when Ruby and the kids moved out and he wondered if this was what it would be like when the world ended.

He kept hiking, moving into the dense forest that bordered the Milton Estate, walking slowly, not really with any direction. He was glad he’d only brought his thick Doc Martens for this trip or else picking through all the underbrush would be a nightmare. Dean was just about to turn and head back when pain flared like lightning in his skull and a loud crack thundered in his ears. Gunshot. He dropped to the ground, glancing around wildly for the source of the shot, but he couldn’t see through the dense trees and bushes.

Dean didn’t think, he just ran until his lungs ached.

He kept running until he got back to the cabin where Castiel was sitting, calm as you please. Until he caught sight of the blood running in rivets down Dean’s face.

Dean was struggling for coherency as he explained what he’d discovered to Castiel, mindlessly following the man’s motions as he was pushed under the warm spray of a shower, wondering when his shirt had been removed. He rambled about going to Bela’s old home, about just wanting to go for a walk and then—

“Somebody shot me! Shot at me! Me! With a gun!”

“Yes, I heard you the first time. Hold still.”

“I know—what are you doing?”

“I need to sew your cut so that it heals properly.”

“Is that floss?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Would you rather go to a hospital, get an infection, or let me sew it shut?”

Dean pouted, glaring up at from his seat on the toilet, a towel wrapped around his wet shoulders. “At least disinfect it first.”

Castiel _rolled his eyes_ and marched out of the room and Dean’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. Okay, so maybe he hadn’t known Cas very long, but he knew for sure that the guy wasn’t a roll his eyes kind of guy. He had thought so anyway. When Castiel returned he had a bottle of vodka.

“Oh, thank _God—_ Ow! What the fuck, Cas?” Dean could feel the alcohol throbbing in his open wound.

“You said to disinfect it.” Castiel poured a splash of vodka over the needle before he _finally_ handed the bottle over to Dean and allowed him to take a long swing.

“Hold still.”

The entire process was fucking painful and almost made Dean wish he’d gone to the fucking hospital. He told Cas as much as the man guided him into the bedroom and pulled the towel off his shoulders.

“Get out of your wet clothes.”

“What—Oh.” Dean heard Castiel move away, but he was still rambling about how much it hurt, how the shot came out of fucking nowhere as he dragged the wet jeans off and threw them violently into the corner, as if they were to blame for all his problems.

“It still fucking hurts. Who shots at people? Who does that?”

“Calm down.” Castiel was in front of him suddenly and oh, fuck.

Cas was naked from the waist down and standing right there in front of Dean.

Suddenly, he couldn’t speak. It felt like the world slowed down as he dragged his eyes up Castiel’s form, taking in the slim, but strong legs that came to an apex at his crotch. Thick, dark hair covered much of that area, but that wasn’t what drew Dean’s attention – no, he was more concerned with the cock hanging there, a little longer than most Dean had encountered and half-hard.

His eyes finally found Castiel’s and he swallowed thickly, mouth gaping open. “This is a bad idea.”

“Just close your eyes.”

Dean wasn’t even give a chance to respond before a rough hand was covering his eyes and pushing him down, firm legs straddling his own. “Keep your eyes shut.”

At first, there was nothing, just the faint press of thighs at his hips. Then the hand that covered his eyes was slipping down, reaching between their bodies and grasping his cock. Cas’ grip was wet and just as firm and strong as the rest of him, squeezing at him until Dean gasped. Lips mouthed at his chest, wet tongue tracing patterns along the side of his neck and he shuddered with it. Teeth sank in and Dean cried out, both in surprise and excitement. Castiel’s mouth was leaving a trail of bites and hickeys over his chest and collarbones, stroking him and stroking him until Dean was digging his heels into the mattress to thrust weakly into Castiel’s hand.

“Cas,” he groaned out, lifting his head, but before he could even get a peak of light, the hand on his cock was gone and put back on his eyes instead.

“No, Dean. Keep your eyes shut.” Cas’ voice sounded broken and Dean could hear a wet squelch. He groaned at the sound of it.

“No.”

“ _Dean._ ”

“No, Cas.” Dean reached up and grasped Castiel’s wrist, meeting no resistance as he pulled the man’s hand away and opened his eyes. The sight was nothing short of glorious.

Castiel was completely naked now, the faint lines of muscles accenting his chest. Lines of back just barely came over his left shoulder and around his waist. When Dean glanced in the mirror behind Castiel, he could see a mass of writhing black, of what at first seemed to be a wing, but later he’d find out was actually a dragon, coiled and thrashing. Shining in the pale yellow light of the lamp was steel bars through each of Castiel’s nipples and immediately Dean wanted to taste them. He could see that Castiel’s fingers were wet and that those lewd noises must have been from them pressing inside his hole. But that wasn’t quite what drew his attention.

No, the best part of it was Castiel’s face. He looked like he’d broken open, a blush seeping right down his neck, mouth wet and open and just begging to be explored. His eyes were hooded, a deep lusty blue taking them over.

“Fuck.”

“That was the plan, yes.” Castiel seemed shy, in a way that Dean hadn’t expected.

“Was?”

“You opened your eyes.”

“Does that mean we have to stop? I mean—if you don’t want to—“

“I’m a man, Dean.”

“I noticed, Cas.”

“You—Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.”

“That wasn’t in my report.”

“I know. Guess you’re not as smart as you thought, huh?”

“I doubt that.”

Dean couldn’t keep his hands off Castiel now, couldn’t stop running his hands up the back of the man’s thighs, feeling the harsh curves of his hips, ghosting his thumbs over those pink and steel nipples. And, God, the gasp that Castiel let out should be illegal.

“ _Dean_.”

“I know, Cas.”

Dean moved forward, fixing his mouth to Castiel’s nipple and feeling the steel click almost painfully against his teeth as they worried at it gently. Fuck, the way Castiel arched into his mouth, the way his hand tangled into Dean’s hair, holding him in place, it was too good. Illegal, yes, this right here should be a sin.

His hands were roaming, grasping at the firm globes of Castiel’s ass, squeezing and pulling until the man was a squirming, moaning mess in his lap.

“Dean.”

He ignored him this time, mouth roaming over Castiel’s chest as his finger stroked gently over pucker of the man’s hole, feeling him shudder in his arms.

“Lube?”

“Lotion.” Dean groped for it blindly, before Castiel bent and pressed it into his hand.

He pulled away, taking in the sight of Castiel unraveling in his lap, hickeys covering most of his chest, panting weakly, those blue eyes wide and unfocused, but locked on Dean.

“Son of a bitch.”

“Dean.”

“I know, I just— Fuck.”

In a moment he was digging fingers into Castiel’s hair – hair he’d wanted to run his fingers through the moment he saw it – tugging his head to the side and leaving a trail of wet kisses up to the man’s jaw. Meanwhile, his finger was working slowly at Castiel’s hole, careful and gentle.

“Dean,” Castiel panted out, “I’m not a china doll. Just do it.”

Dean huffed a laugh against the smooth column of skin. “If you say so.”

And just like that his finger was slipping in, feeling that tight heat close down around him, throbbing around him and the both groaned.

“More, Dean.”

Dean didn’t comply right away, thrusting his finger in shallowly, returning his mouth to those fucking perky, pink nipples and using a hand to keep the man’s cheeks spread wide open. He could feel Castiel’s length against his chest, jumping against his skin. He couldn’t help himself; Dean groped for Castiel’s cock, wrapping his hands around it tight and squeezing, pulling at it. Removing his mouth form the man’s nipple only briefly, Dean spat down onto to Castiel’s swollen cock, the wetness of it helping him to stroke harder, faster. Castiel was right – he was not a china doll. Soon he was gasping as Dean pressed two, then three fingers inside, his hand pumping him with the same motion, thrusting and twisting until he find that spot. The reaction was instantaneous: Castiel’s head fell back and he shuddered, gradually coming apart in Dean’s arms.

Castiel finally seemed to lose his patience and he was shoving Dean back down again, pressing him into the bed. But there was no hand over his eyes this time and the pain from his wound was gone.

Castiel’s hand was wrapping around him and Dean cursed; it was warm and slick with lotion and fuck. He could feel a condom being rolled down over him and felt brief happiness that at least one of them had some common sense because Dean didn’t think he was capable of it at that moment. Then Castiel was grasping him at the hilt, bent forward over him, biting his lip in concentration as the head of Dean’s cock popped inside his slicked up hole and Dean struggled not to thrust forward, to let Castiel handle this part. It was hardly a moment before he was buried inside Castiel tight and close and so fucking warm. He could feel Castiel pulsing around him, could feel him throb as his breath sped up.

Slowly, so slowly at first, Castiel began moving in his lap, small movements, a shallow fucking and it was still just as good.

“ _Cas._ ” Dean groaned and a hand clasped at his shoulder, branding him with warmth.

“I know.” Castiel was moving faster now, hips practically slamming down to meet Dean’s.

“Cas, can I—“

“Yes—“

And just like that Dean was wrapping his arms around Castiel’s waist and hooking his arms under the man’s knees to hike him in closer. Castiel arched in his arms.

He was still slow, still careful, but fuck if it wasn’t getting harder and harder to control himself. Castiel was just so warm and tight and fucking perfect around him, squeezing and milking at him, like he was sucking him in deeper. And when Dean found that right spot, when his dick nudged against that little bundle of nerves, _fuck_ that was when Castiel turned into a work of art. He would shout out, mouth open and wet and just so inviting, red flushing over his skin in waves. Perfect. Fucking perfect.

“ _Dean_.”

“Yeah?”

“Faster. More.”

“Yeah.” He was right there with Cas, and fuck if it wasn’t a struggle to keep his pace, to keep control as he began to quicken, until his hips were pounding into Castiel’s and the lewd sound of skin slapping on skin filled the room under the sounds of their moans.

Hands came up and grasped the back of his neck, tugging him in until a mouth closed over his own and he was losing himself in a different kind of heaven. Castiel tasted like cigarettes and coffee and leather and ozone. Their teeth clicked together as Castiel’s mashed against his own and it was all Dean could do to keep up with the force of his kiss.

And Castiel was clenching around him, shuddering in his arms, falling apart right there, Dean’s name on his lips like a whispered prayer and it was so fucking perfect.

Dean scrambled to reach a hand between their bodies, but Castiel stopped him.

“No, like this, just like this.”

Dean didn’t think it was possible, but then he was always up for learning new things. Each of his thrusts was aimed now, targeting that spot, bucking against it and Castiel was falling, falling and then he was gone.

Dean watched as Castiel let out a cry that was wild, yet soft, the tendons in his neck straining as he clung desperately to Dean’s shoulder (there would be bruises later) and he was coming, thick rivets of it all over his stomach and Dean could feel it splashing against his own too, could feel Castiel’s cock twitching up against him and it was so perfect, so fucking perfect, just so—

And then Dean was gone too, lost in the clench of Castiel’s body around his own, in that tight heat clamping down around him, sucking him down like a goddamned—

“Fuck!” Dean came with a cry, tensing all over, clinging to Castiel desperately as he buried himself deep, spilling into the condom, feeling the pleasure burning over him in waves and waves.

He came crashing down, face buried in the crook of Castiel’s neck, panting harshly. He realized this was probably not the most comfortable position for Cas, but instead of pushing him away, the man was holding him closer, stroking a hand through his hair.

It was heaven.

 

Sometime later, they were both laying in bed, passing a cigarette between them and Dean was fully explaining what had happened with the shooting, in much more coherent words.

“Fascinating.”

“Did you just say ‘fascinating?’ Who are you? Spock?”

“No, Dean, I’m Cas—“

“It was a rhetorical question.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Spock. Spock! You know, ‘Live long and prosper?’ Come on! Did you never watch Star Trek?”

“I never had occasion.”

“Oh my God. Oh my God.”

“I don’t see what the issue is—“

“No, okay. Once we’re done with all these Milton assholes and their family dramas, we are going to have a goddamned Star Trek marathon and you will be educated.”

“…I would like that.”

“My God. Next, you’ll be telling me you don’t know who Led Zeppelin is.”

“Dean, I’m a recluse, not an idiot.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next day was not nearly as awkward as Dean thought it might be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the novel/film "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."  
> Thanks so much for reading so far!  
> Kayleigh, I want to kiss you on the mouth.

**CHAPTER FOURTEEN**

The next day was not nearly as awkward as Dean thought it might be. He woke up alone, but the smell of coffee filled the small cabin and he could hear movement in the living room.

There was strange sort of warmth in waking up and seeing Castiel wander around the apartment with toast hanging out of his mouth and nothing but Dean’s sweater and a pair of black briefs on.

“Hey.”

“Hello, Dean.” Castiel just looked at him owlishly, but Dean could read the smallest of grins at the corner of his mouth.

“I really like working with you, Cas.”

Castiel turned away, but Dean saw the smile anyway. “Me, too.”

 

That day they went to meet with Balthazar and Azazel, who were overseeing Milton & Sons while Gabriel recovered in the hospital.

It wasn’t going well.

“Dean, people hunt in those woods all the time.” Azazel was saying, “It was an unfortunate accident, but to say that someone was actually shooting at you—“

“Explain the cat then, please. I’d love to hear your theories.”

“What I don’t understand,” Balthazar said, “Is why the bloody hell you want access to the archives?”

“I have everything, I have photos, I have police reports, videos… You name it I got it. The one thing I don’t have is Milton & Sons’ records. That’s what I need.”

“And you still haven’t answered my question: why?”

Dean pauses, jaw clenching, debating how much he can tell of these men and slowly realizing that there’s only one person he can trust in this whole mess now.

“Gabriel said I could have whatever I needed. Everything. I need the records.”

“I don’t think he meant this—“

“Call him.” Castiel spoke up for the first time.

Balthazar gave the man a withering look. “Gabriel’s sick right now, I don’t think that would be—“

“Balthazar. Give them what they want.” Dean nodded his head in thanks to Azazel. “He’s right. It’s what Gabe wants.”

For a moment, Balthazar looked like he would put up a fight. Then he threw his hands up and sighed. “I don’t know why I ever hired either of you little shits.”

 

Dean offered to go with Castiel, but the man had insisted that he would do better on his own. Dean liked to think that Cas would only be distracted by Dean’s sexiness and that Cas was just too shy to admit it. It was a nice thought.

Before Castiel left, Dean stopped him.

“Hey, hang on, take this.”

“What is that?”

“Well, it’s a coat. Trench coat, I guess. I know it’s not really your color, but…”

“I already have a coat.”

“I know I just had an extra one I brought with me and I thought you might want it. I hear it’s supposed to get pretty chilly tonight. You might need the extra layers.”

Castiel had taken the bundle of tan coat, shyly, like it was a gift or something and unstrapped his bag from the back of his bike to place it carefully inside.

“Thank you, Dean.”

Cas went to the archives of Milton & Sons, which were conveniently kept in a refurbished warehouse on the other side of town while he returned to the cabin to see if there was anything more he could dig up. It was a long shot since it would be mostly in Castiel’s hands to try and match any of the murdered girls to Milton & Sons, to see if they could figure out who the hell killed all those girls.

Of course, there were a few suspects: Michael being on top of Dean’s list. But Michael had barely stepped outside his house unless it was to minister and he’d been that way before the murders had escalated. He was the most likely, but somehow Dean really doubted it was him. And yet his mind was telling him it was the only logical explanation since Michael was the only one still alive when the five other girls that Bela didn’t list were killed.

So yeah, best guess? Michael.

Dean was scrolling through photo and video footage from _that day_ when he noticed it. It was a video of the barn burning down, people standing around and watching it go and Dean hoped that this meant they had cleared all the animals out like Gabriel said they had. But that wasn’t what caught his attention. In the lower left corner of the video was Michael, standing there with a camera and taking snapshots of the crowd and the fire. He paused the video, squinting at the screen. Yeah, it had to be Michael. There was no mistaking those thick eyebrows and thick dark hair, not to mention he was wearing the whole priest-reverend get-up thing.

A little more investigating showed that Michael had the camera around his neck practically the whole day. Which meant that there are photos of that day that Dean hasn’t seen, which maybe nobody had seen.

“Fuck.”

It took him about twenty minutes to build up the courage to call.

She answered on the second ring.

“Hello?”

“Hey. Anna. It’s Dean.”

“Who—oh. Oh, yes. Hi. Uh, how are you?”

Oh yeah, this was so not awkward in any way. “Fine, uh listen, I’ve got a question for you. Well, a favor I guess.”

“Uh, okay. I’ll do what I can.”

“Great. I was wondering if you could talk to your dad for me.”

“My _father?_ ” Uh oh. That was not the voice of someone was eager to do a favor.

“Yeah, uh, I think he might have some family pictures I could use, for the – uh – biography, you know.”

“Right. The biography. On Gabriel. Who doesn’t even talk to Michael. Come on, Dean at least tell me what this is really about.”

Shit. Dean sighed. “Anna, I can’t. I just—I just need you to do me this favor.”

“No.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because! I haven’t spoken to my dad in, oh, five years? Five years.”

“What is with this family? Don’t any of you speak to each other?”

“I’m sorry, but when your father calls you an abomination and forces you from the house, it gets a little difficult to speak to each other.”

“Oh—I, uh. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m not.”

“Can’t you make an exception? It would really help me out.” But Dean had already lost this argument, he knew.

“No, Dean, I’m sorry.”

She hung up.

 

Which is how Dean arrived at Michael’s front door and was shown through the entryway by a stiff butler that only glared at Dean, in to the den where the man sat by the fire, nose buried in an ancient bible.

“Hi, I’m—“

“Dean Winchester, yes, I heard you were here. Sit.”

Once he was seated, there was a long moment of silence while Michael presumably finished reading his passage and Dean could get with that. Nobody really liked to be interrupted when they were reading a good book. Or the good book, as the case may be. He took the chance to take in the place. The wallpaper practically disappeared entirely behind the photos hanging from it and he assumed that Michael himself must have taken them.

“Do you admire my work?”

Dean noticed then that Michael had been staring at him like a piece of meat. Okay, that wasn’t creepy at all. The man’s eyes were friggin’ piercing, like he was looking straight through Dean’s meat suit. Yeah, he could see how the guy could succeed at becoming a priest or whatever he was. His hair was still dark in spots, but the streaks of grey were quickly overwhelming it. But there was no mistaking he was still the same chiseled and handsome man in the video.

“Yeah, it’s something. I actually wanted to see you about that. I’m looking for more candid photos and I heard that you did a lot of picture-taking of the family?”

“Why, yes. I keep most of the family photos in that drawer there. Help yourself.”

“Uh, thanks.” Still trying to get rid of the creep vibe, Dean smiled as best as he could and stood, going to the old chest of drawers that Michael had gestured to. Each drawer was slim, like it had been built for this exact purpose. The photos were all in folders, but there didn’t seem to be much of organization to them. Until Dean found the file that contained photos from the day Bela disappeared.

He turned with the file in his hands, but Michael was right there, standing behind him obscenely close. “Jesus.”

“You just blasphemed, Dean.”

“Sorry. Uh. My bad?”

“Hmm, yes, very bad. Have you been saved, Dean?”

“What? Uh. No. I don’t think so?”

“How can you not know? I’m talking about your soul, Dean.”

“Yeah, uh, you know, now that I think about it, I have been saved. Saved by, uh—God. Yes.”

“Good for you, Dean. I knew there was something I liked about you. You could be a vessel for God. You need only apply yourself more. You are a righteous man. I could help you.”

“Yeah, thanks. I think. How about I get a rain check? Do you mind if I borrow these?”

“Be my guest. But remember, God does not wait for long.”

 

Needless to say, Dean was damn glad to get out of Michael’s house. Maybe the guy was really deep in the closet or something because he was really layering on the creep in there. He almost wanted to take a shower after that encounter.

When he got back to the cabin, he immediately hated how cold it seemed without Castiel there. The guy may have been small, but he just filled up the place every time he was there. His voice would boom out, his heat would fill the air and damn it, Dean was getting soft again. But it was like standing inside the fucking Chrysler Building after hours. At that point, Dean was damn close to missing the cat too, if only there would be someone to fill up the emptiness in the room.

Dean dropped the file on the desk and turned to grab himself a beer from the fridge. When he turned, a few photos had fallen out and landed in a messy pile on the floor.

“Great.”

He left his beer open on the counter and bent to the pictures. He had planned on just shoving them back in the folder and checking his email before he got into them, but something made him pause.

It was a photo of the woods that must have bordered the Milton Estate. Several figures were combing the area, some of them with dogs on leashes. One figure in particular was obscured, his face a mass of blur that took up most of the frame. One the lapel of his jacket was a yellow patch of some kind with maybe a cross on it, and Dean could feel something tickling at the edge of his mind, like it was somehow familiar to him.

Taking the picture and leaving the rest, Dean got up and went to the family tree he’d built, complete with new and old pictures. The figure was masculine, at least from what Dean could see, but he knew he’d seen that patch somewhere. Anna? No. Pam? No? Bela? No. Who then?

Azazel. Yes, when Dean moved to his makeshift family tree and held the picture up to an old school picture of Azazel, he saw that the patch on the lapel was the same shape and color, same oversized cross as the one the blurry figure in the picture wore.

“Shit.”

Dean could feel the awareness building up in him and after rifling through the pile of Bobby’s police reports until he found the one he needed.

_“Azazel Milton, brother to the missing child, arrived on the 4:30 bus from Colorado.”_

He could feel the blood ringing in his ears as he rushed over to his laptop, bringing up a scanned image.

It was the photo from Maggie Stark, the one that showed the back of Bela’s head staring off at someone with the expression of horror Dean had seen in the video. An oversized clock above the parade-goers’ head read 2:00. And just beneath it stood another figure, most of his face obscured by the balloon of someone passing by. On his lapel, was a yellow patch with a cross. Dean grabbed the photo Michael had taken, compared it with the school photo he had. They matched. They all matched. Same blonde hair, same jacket, same patch.

Same pale green-yellow eyes.

“Son of a bitch.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I need access to everything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the novel/film "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."  
> Thanks so much for reading so far!  
> Kayleigh, let's make-out.

**CHAPTER FIFTEEN**

“I need access to everything.”

“You have access to everything.”

“No. There are many things I do not have access to: subsidiary corporations, partnerships, and suppliers, for instance.”

“You can’t have access to those.”

“Allard said I can access to everything.”

“Not that.”

There was a beat as Castiel put the full force of his glare on the woman, first name Atropos. She just glared right back, pushing her thick rimmed glasses up her nose and sitting up even straighter in her chair. She had been a pain in his ass all night, nitpicking over every document he pulled, making sure he treated them properly.

Dean would have hated her.

“Call Allard.”

He turned away, leaving her to decide whether or not she would call. If she didn’t, he would.

 

In the end, Atropos had made the call and Castiel got the access he needed. She led the way upstairs and he found exactly what he needed: a map of the United States with the Milton & Sons’ logo spread across it in varying sizes. It wasn’t crowded with the names of every town in each state, but it did list the capital and beside the different sized logos was the name of the city or town that particular factory or subsidy was located in.

He didn’t bother to ask for permission when he took the map from it’s storage case and brought it to his work desk and this time Atropos hadn’t put up a fuss.

Just a precursory glance told Castiel exactly what he needed to know. He took out the list of names that Bela had compiled as well as his own list.

Each name and place of death matched the general area that held a Milton & Sons Inc. logo over it. Castiel could hear Dean’s voice his head, already muttering curses. He smiled at the thought, but only when he was sure that there was no one around to witness it.

This meant that someone within the Milton family or the company was responsible for the rapes and murders. And it meant that they were also responsible for Bela’s disappearance.

 

“Shit. Fuck. Son of a bitch.”

Dean was really wishing that Castiel was around again as he paced the floor of the cabin back and forth. Once he’d figured it out, he’d triple-checked every goddamned door and window in the place and pulled all the blinds.

Azazel. Fucking _Azazel_! It didn’t make any sense! But it must be him. He was there that day two hours before he claimed to arrive in the police reports. And what had he done for those two hours? He’d fucking stalked his sister. But she’d seen him, she’d seen him from across the street at the parade and then she’d left. She’d gotten that horrified fucking look on her face and then she booked it. Dean knew, he’d watched the video twenty times in the last ten minutes alone.

Fuck.

Shit.

Son. Of. A. Bitch.

It was insane. Fucking insane.

But how to explain the murder before, when Azazel was still just crawling around in diapers? The first had happened in, what, 1980? Something like that. They went on every few years up until…

Up until 2001. Up until Lucifer died.

No, that wasn’t quite right. Because after Lucifer died and Bela disappeared, there was one more.

Dean was scrambling again, tripping over the cords of something in his hurry to get to the meticulously arranged piles of police reports. Each girl had her own pile with every scrap of information they could put together about her (all Castiel’s idea, of course, Dean could never think up something so friggin’ _organized_ on his own). The last, right before they all stopped completely. 2003. Nancy Fitzgerald murdered in Monument, Colorado, strangled and raped. Cause of death: chest cut open and heart removed. The heart was then burned. Attached in the folder was copy of the picture of Nancy, smiling brightly for her school photo, a bright yellow patch with a cross on the lapel of her vest.

A bright yellow patch that matched the one Azazel wore in the other pictures.

“I need a drink.” Dean declared to no one. He needed a smoke too, but it felt like bugs were crawling on his skin when he even thought about going outside, not when he knew what he knew.

So Dean sat on the bed, cradling the bottle of vodka Castiel had used to sterilize his wounds and help him deal with the pain, taking long swigs. Each one made him feel a little bit steadier, like maybe he could deal with this.

When he finally got the courage to go to the window, he could see Azazel’s house on the highest point on the Estate, overlooking the whole compound.

It was eating at him now, that he just needed one more piece, something more conclusive than a few photos that placed him at a different place and different time, that put him right there with the weapon in his hand. Dean wasn’t going to make the same mistakes he did last time, letting his impatience get the best of him, leaping before looking, all that crap. But he wasn’t going to let it happen, not again.

That decided, Dean threw on his coat and stomped out the door, making the long walk up the hill in the dark night to Azazel’s house.

 

He had been right, at least, that Azazel wasn’t home. And he’d been lucky when he found that one of the side doors was open, that it was such a small place and so tight-knit that people could forget to lock one of their doors and not worry about getting robbed. Dean was willing to bed that Azazel had good homeowners insurance too.

 _Not the thing to be thinking about when breaking into a murders’ house, Dean_ , said Castiel’s voice loud and clear in his mind.

Right. Focus. Focus is good. Jesus this house was nice. It was obviously one of the newer houses on the property; Dean was willing to bet that it was some kind of gift or something, these crazy rich people with their crazy expensive—

 _Dean_.

Focus.

From what Dean could see there was nothing about the place that really screamed serial killer, but then he did specialize in financial journalism, so there could be something he was missing. The place was immaculate, all modern furniture and high-tech gizmos that Dean could never hope to use. He found a gun rack in Azazel’s office, but one of the guns was missing.

Okay, that worried him enough to make him tug the switchblade out of his back pocket and flick it open. Thank God for worrisome truck driver fathers.

He was just closing the door to Azazel’s office when he caught sight of something he hadn’t noticed right away. Tucked in the far corner of the room was another door. He assumed it was another closet until he tried to open it and found it locked. Weird.

He was still trying to work out how to try and pick the door when the sound of tires hitting gravel alerted him.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Dean cursed, booking it through the house and heading towards the door he’d used to get in. Except he could see the black shape of someone there, Azazel opening the door. Trying not to scream, Dean jumped into the nearest closet he could find and tucked himself in as far as he could go.

There was barely any sound over the pounding of blood in his ears, but he heard the sound of shuffling at the front door, of keys being tossed onto a table. Then there was a pause during which Dean had to remind himself to breathe, in and out. The movement carried on, down the hall, and a door shut. He waited, but he couldn’t tell where Azazel had gone. Maybe he was just on the shitter.

Dean figured he’d chance it. He may not have exactly had proof, but he did know that Azazel had something to do with something and that was enough to make him want to get the fuck out.

A quick peak through the closet door told him that there was no movement, but he could see a ray of light from underneath the door of Azazel’s office, just down the hall. He had to chance it.

Dean liked to think he was stealthy as a cat as he moved down the hall slowly and carefully, his dad’s knife clutched in a white knuckled grip. Aderlinaline was firing through him, everything seeming to slow down. If he could just get to the door, he could the hell out and never have anything to do with this guy again.

His hand was closing around the doorknob when powerful arms were clamping his own to his sides and a hand was covering his mouth and nose.

“Dean, Dean, _Dean_. I’m very disappointed in you.”

Then everything went black. 


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Atropos was practically steaming with anger now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the novel/film "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."  
> Thanks so much for reading so far!  
> Kayleigh, let's make-out.

**CHAPTER SIXTEEN**

“We’re closed now.”

“Not finished.” He didn’t look up, just continued flipping through articles headings.

A sigh then, “You have to leave. It’s policy. I can’t leave you here unattended.”

“Call Allard.”

Oh, Atropos was practically steaming with anger now. Castiel ignored her and kept searching.

She came back moments later, and dropped the keys on his laptop. She better not have scratched it up.

“Leave the keys with the guard when you’re done.”

Atropos paused and Castiel knew she was waiting for a reply, but he didn’t give her one, just kept flipping through his work.

So far he’d matched nine out of the ten murders with the location of a Milton & Sons factory or subsidiary and around the time of the murder Lucifer Milton himself was in that town, meeting with business partners and getting his picture published in the paper right alongside the article announcing the death of a young local woman. But there was one victim who didn’t make sense. When Lucifer died in 2001, the murders didn’t stop, at least not right away.

**Victim**

| 

**Location**

| 

**C.O.D.**

| 

**Year**

| 

**Who**  
  
---|---|---|---|---  
  
Karen Singer

| 

Haven, NY

| 

Stoning

| 

1978

| 

Lucifer?  
  
Constance Welch

| 

Jericho, CA

| 

Throat slit

| 

1980

| 

Lucifer?  
  
Lori Sorenson

| 

Ankey, IA

| 

Burned

| 

1983

| 

Lucifer?  
  
Layla Rourke

| 

La Grange, NB

| 

Suffocation

| 

1985

| 

Lucifer?  
  
Lenore Jacobs

| 

Red Lodge, MT

| 

Dismemberment

| 

1988

| 

Lucifer?  
  
Angela Mason

| 

Greenville, IL

| 

Stabbed

| 

1990

| 

Lucifer?  
  
Jamie Lawson

| 

Canonsburg, PA

| 

Decapitation

| 

1993

| 

Lucifer?  
  
Risa Edwards

| 

Kansas City, MO

| 

Dismemberment

| 

1995

| 

Lucifer?  
  
Penny Dessertine

| 

Portland, OR

| 

Drowning

| 

1998

| 

Lucifer?  
  
Nancy Fitzgerald

| 

Monument, CO

| 

Chest wound

| 

2002

| 

???????  
  
 

Castiel had been staring at the document for a few minutes, but nothing new was coming to him. He wasn’t tired yet, but it frustrated him that there was something he was missing, that he couldn’t quite pick up on.

He needed to step back, to take a moment and hydrate. He went to the lobby, didn’t look at the guard, though he knew the guard was looking at him. He bought water and a chocolate bar and still didn’t look at the guard as he marched away.

When he returned, he could breathe again and think again. He took up a binder of newspaper articles from 2002 gathered by the Milton & Sons archivist, looking for anything he might be able to connect to someone in the family. It was when he was flipping through that he came across a photo of a dinner. Standing at the head of the table is Gabriel, smiling and raising a glass of champagne, his arm wrapped around a young man’s shoulder. The young man did not look happy about it. The caption read:

_Gabriel Milton and his nephew, Azazel Milton (18, visiting from boarding school in Monument, Colorado) attend a Christmas dinner for their staff and family._

And there, on the boys’ blazer, was a patch with a large cross on it that Castiel knew he recognized immediately. It only took him a moment to find the right picture of a young girl, Nancy Fitzgerald, smiling; and there on her lapel is the same yellow patch with the same cross. The article said that Azazel attended school in Monument, Colorado. The place where Nancy Fitzgerald attended school and the place where she was murdered.

Immediately, Castiel began gathering up his things, didn’t bother to put back any of the documents he’d pulled out. He dropped the keys at the guards desk like he’d been asked, and the sleeping guard didn’t even stir. As soon as he was outside he was dialing Dean’s number, excited that he’d figured it out, but also feeling something tight and uncomfortable in his chest. _Hurry,_ that feeling told him.

There was no answer from Dean’s phone.

 

When Castiel arrived at the cabin, he saw that Dean’s car was home and felt some relief. The front door was locked, which was strange, but perhaps Dean had figured something out too.

It was only when Castiel entered and called out for Dean, saw that the lights were still on, that his computer was still open that he began to worry. Sitting there on his desk was the same pictures Castiel had been looking at in the archives, the photos of Azazel and Nancy. So he had figured it out. But then why wasn’t he here?

Castiel went immediately to the small laptop he’d left tucked in a bag under the coffee table. When he opened it, it showed him all four of the cameras he’d set up around the cabin. Rewinding, he watched Dean enter, watched Dean smoke, watched him go and lock the door, watched him leave and lock the door behind him, watched him trudge away, nothing out of the ordinary.

Until another car pulled up and Castiel watched them circle around the cabin, their face always slightly out of the camera’s focus. It wasn’t until the man came up to the front door and jiggled the door knob that Castiel got a good view of who it was.

 

It was probably the blinding white light that woke him. When Dean first opened his eyes, he could barely see anything past the glaring brightness of the room. He blinked and blinked, waiting for it to fade.

“Wakey-wakey, eggs and bakey, Dean…”

He tried to move his arms, but something clamped down on them and held them still. He wanted to move his head to see, but something stopped him from looking down too far.

“Calm down, Dean. You don’t want to hyperventilate, that could seriously hurt you and then what would I do?”

Dean’s vision had cleared a little better, he could see that it was Azazel speaking, had known that as soon as the man had started, and he shuddered at the sound of it.

“I was beginning to wonder if you would ever wake up.” Dean could see Azazel sitting across from him in a leather chair with a tripod and camera set up next to him.

“You son of a bitch.” Dean growled out, but whatever it was around his neck was limiting the movement of his jaw and the words came out jumbled through clenched teeth.

“Now, Dean.” Azazel _smiled_ and raised his eyebrows and had his eyes always been that yellow? “Do you really think that you should be rude to the man who’s got you strung up from a ceiling?”

Dean looked up and he could see that there was a thick cable that led down to where he was, though he couldn’t see what it was tied to. Some kind of straps went under his armpits and held him so that he barely grazed the floor with his toes. The cuffs around his wrists were thick and pull his arms back so they are shackled at the back of his neck, to what he didn’t know. The room he was in smelled like a sterile hospital and he could see that every inch of it was clean. On the wall to his left are tools of all kinds, power tools, saws, drills. Beside that is a bookshelf full of DVDs and VHS tapes. And just over Azazel’s head is a corkboard with hundreds of little Polaroid pictures. And, just to add to the torture, he could see the door, standing open and tempting, but so far out of reach.

“Pretty fun contraption, huh? Look at me, Dean.”

He dragged his eyes back to the man, trying to put the full force of his anger behind his glare.

“Why don’t you tell me what you’ve learned? What you’ve really discovered? No lies.”

Dean remains stubbornly silent. Azazel sighed and got up from his chair, grabbing the shower curtain he had spread out on the workbench and began spreading it out underneath Dean’s feet, arranging it carefully.

“I found a picture.” Dean grinds out.

“Good boy. Of what?”

“You in your high school blazer. At the parade. You lied about where you were that day.”

There was no need for Dean to explain which day he’s talking about, they both knew.

“So what?”

“It proves you went to school with Nancy too.”

“Nancy? Ah, yes! Nancy. Boy, you are _good_ , aren’t you?”

“Thanks.”

“So where is this picture?”

“Safe.”

“Dean.” Azazel’s voice is low, like a parent scolding a child. “Don’t lie to me. Where’s your boyfriend?”

Dean’s throat clenches and he struggled not to let anything show on his face. “Back in the city. I sent him—“

“Another lie. Wow, you’re _really_ not good with this whole truth concept, are you? He’s at the archives. Balthazar’s been calling me all night because the librarian or archivist or whatever she calls herself has been calling him.” Azazel moved in close, so their noses were almost touching. “And when your Castiel – what a sweet name – leaves, I’m going to get a call from the guard.”

Dean bucked in the bonds, struggling against them, but everything only seemed to pull harder, choke faster.

“Oh, don’t be like that. I’m just trying to have a good time, Dean.”  Azazel turned back to his seat, squirming like a restless, excited child, “Come on, ask me some questions.”

Dean didn’t speak.

“Come on, Dean.”

Still nothing. He had a thousand questions and he had a feeling that if he didn’t try one Azazel would kill him (was probably going to kill him regardless), but every time he tried all that came to his tongue was _Please don’t kill me, don’t hurt me_. So he stayed silent.

“All right, fine. I’ll ask the questions. How about, ‘What do I do to the girls?’” Azazel crossed his arms and legs, looking like a man thinking over an interview question for a fucking job at a bank.

“Well, we usually sit like this, only there’s a lot more crying on their end. I really do commend you for keeping so composed so far. I wonder how long you’ll be able to keep it up. Anyway, I don’t just pick them willy-nilly, you know. I mean, I know I make it look like a goddamned art form, but you can’t just pick anyone. It has to be a special girl, a special child. Someone nobody will miss. That part’s easy. So’s the part where I bring them here. You know, Dean, you’ve got to explain this to me: Why are humans so stupid? Hmm? Why? I mean, you’re- you’re walking down the street and you hear footsteps behind you. Don’t you wonder if they’re following you? If they’re going to grab you? No? You should really learn to be more aware of your surroundings, Dean. The world just isn’t safe anymore.

Afterwards I usually just burn them and use their ash in my garden. You’d be surprised how many uses of human ash there are, how easy it is to scatter. That’s nothing my daddy never learned, how to keep himself in line, how to get rid of the bodies properly. But I learned from his mistakes. Hell, I’ve made a proper life out of this.

It really is fun, you know. Perhaps if you’d kept your nose in your own business I could have shown you. You could have been great, Dean.”

Dean said nothing, but he felt his upper lip curl into a grimace.

“I’m not a rapist, Dean. Not anymore anyway. I mean, that was all right for a while. Held me over for a little while. But now… Now I need something more. A rapist gets off on domination, but I… I need _destruction_.” Azazel’s smile was gone, replaced by a look of hunger that made Dean’s dinner threaten to reappear.

Everything had gone cold in him, like all the warmth in the world had been sucked out of the room in one breath.

“I know, you’re anxious, aren’t you? Well, since you’re so eager, why don’t we just get started, hmm?”

Azazel stood and Dean struggled to keep him in his view, knowing that the moment he let the guy out of his sight was the moment he would be dead. The man moved to a button on the wall and the sound of a small motor reached his ears as the cord pulled him up and up until he was about a foot from the ground. Dean struggled, of course, he wasn’t going to go down without a fight, but it was completely useless. The straps under his arms took some of his weight, but most of it was on his throat, like being hanged old-west style but much slower.

“Is this what you did to Bela?”Azazel’s eyes snapped to his face and Dean rejoiced briefly that he’d won, that he’d caught the man off guard.

Until Azazel was bearing down on him, a hand wrapping around his throat and squeezing brutally, crushing the contraption around his neck and this was it, Dean was sure he was going to die.

“What do you know? Where is she?” Dean couldn’t answer. “Where is she?” Azazel hollered, spit flying.

“Y-You killed her?” Dean was released suddenly, swinging from the ceiling and heaving in deep breaths.

“Really, Dean? I really expected so much more from you.”

And then there was plastic over his head, surrounding him, getting into his mouth and nose as he heaved in breaths, and yet felt like he couldn’t breathe at the same time. Every instinct in his body told him that if he just tried harder, sucked in deeper he might get some air, but it just wasn’t happening. He could see the form of Azazel moving around, going to his wall of tools, a blurry shape through the plastic. Dean’s suffocating, his breaths coming slower and slower, vision fading in and out, this is it. Bye, Sammy. Bye, Cas. Hello, Hell.

Then Azazel was there in front of him again, “Would you like me to do something about that?”

Dean nodded desperately and felt Azazel’s finger poke through the plastic over his open more, tasted the man’s finger on his tongue briefly.

“See? I’m not entirely cruel, am I?” Dean didn’t answer, as air – beautiful air – flooded into his lungs. Azazel continued on, cutting open Dean’s shirt with a pair of scissors. Dean craned his fingers, reaching for the cord that held him up, trying to loosen it, trying to do something, anything. Fingers were at his crotch then, opening his pants and pulling down his zipper before they stop and pull back.

“I don’t think I’ve had a guy in here before.” That didn’t stop Azazel’s hands from exploring the flesh he’d revealed. “The only man I ever touched was my father – it was our duty. He’d spew about the bible the whole time, how he loved us like God loved his children, and he’d reward us.”

Hands are on him again, but not on his pants, thank God. But it wouldn’t matter, not for long because Azazel was poking and prodding at him now, with something much sharper than fingers.

“It’s always so hard to find the right starting point. You want to avoid the intestines so they don’t lose control of their bladder – you have no idea how long it took me to clean up the last time—“

But Dean’s not listening anymore because there’s a black and brown shape moving behind Azazel, one that he knows he recognizes even through the blurry film of plastic over his head.

There’s no warning when the tire iron swings down on Azazel’s head, the man just crumbles to the floor. Dean can see Castiel hovering over the man for one brief second before the weapon in his hands swings down again and he’s stepping over the other man’s body to get to Dean.

“Dean.”

He can’t talk, but his mouth forms a name as Castiel pressed the button on the wall and Dean went crashing to the ground, his legs too weak to catch him. But Castiel is there, unlocking his arms with keys and pulling the thing off his neck. Castiel’s hands were on his face and, however expressionless the man may be, Dean can feel the way they shake.

“Dean? Are you all right?”

“You’re wearing the trench coat?” Dean croaked out.

“I was cold.”

Movement over Castiel’s shout makes him rasp out a warning, but Azazel wasn’t coming for them. Instead, he’s running for the door.

Castiel looks to Dean and Dean nods.

“Wait here.”

Castiel pulled a gun – where the hell did he get that? – from his back and runs off before Dean can say anything more.

“ _Shit_.”

 

There really was no point in Azazel running, but he still did. From what Castiel had been able to gleen, the man had a broken jaw and nose, several contusions, a possible concussion and maybe a missing tooth. Why he ran Castiel would never understand.

But that didn’t stop him from giving chase. Men as careful as Azazel probably had a way to disappear, if they were smart. It was what Castiel would have done.

So he followed the red lights of Azazel’s expensive car, the both of them speeding down the rural wooded road, the sound of engines tearing through the night. He could feel the same urge to hurt, to destroy, to take his vengeance in flesh and blood as he hugged close to the man’s car, as he watched him lose control, watched the car go rolling into a line of trees.

Castiel felt rage pounding through his blood and it made every detail of the night stand out sharp and clear. The car had landed on it’s side and the roof was badly crushed in. the emergency lights were blinking and as he strode closer, Castiel could see that the airbags had gone off. But he could also see Azazel inside, just barely conscious and staring around as if he didn’t know where he was. Probably the concussion. But once he looked up and saw Castiel coming forwards, he started to fumble for his seat belt, trying to get himself loose.

The smell of gasoline was thick in the air and Castiel knew then that the tank must have been punctured. Sure enough, when he got in closer, just a few feet away from the struggling Azazel, he could see the pool of it shining in the moonlight. There was no denying what Castiel would do now.

Reaching into the pocket of the tan trench coat, Castiel pulled out a small silver zippo. It had been in there when he put it on, as if waiting for this moment. He cast a look at the man, saw the fear, saw the pleading and felt nothing.

Castiel lit the flame and watched a man burn. 


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean was laying in the glow Castiel’s warmth, early morning light shining through the bedroom window. They were still panting hard, still shivering, still clinging to one another as the sun rose and filled the room with pale yellow light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the novel/film "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."  
> Thanks so much for reading so far!  
> Kayleigh, I'm in lesbians with you.

**CHAPTER SEVENTEEN**

Dean was laying in the glow Castiel’s warmth, early morning light shining through the bedroom window. They were still panting hard, still shivering, still clinging to one another as the sun rose and filled the room with pale yellow light.

Later, when they were laying next to each other and were breathing properly again, Dean spoke up.

“Why are you still a ward of the state?”

For a moment, Castiel seemed like he wouldn’t answer and Dean was about to take the question back when the man just pressed the end of a cigarette into Dean’s mouth and lit it with Dean’s silver zippo.

“I am mentally incompetent and incapable of functioning in daily life.” He said it like one who’s had to say it before, with a clinical detachment.

But soon they were both smiling, Dean was huffing out a laugh that made his bruised throat ache.

“Ow. Well, that’s bullshit.”

“Yes.” There was a smile in Castiel’s voice.

“So how long have you been a ward?”

“Since I was twelve.”

“What the hell happened then?” A long pause, too heavy and Dean was tripping over his words, “Sorry, shit, that’s personal I shouldn’t—“

“I set my father on fire.”

“Oh. Shit.”

“He wasn’t my real father. I’m adopted.”

“Oh.” There was quiet as Dean smoked and Castiel lay there watching him. Finally, Dean just nodded. “Okay.”

There was a silent promise there, that when Castiel wanted to tell the story Dean would listen.

But for now, Dean just leaned over him and pressed smoky kisses to his lips.

 

“You know, I don't think that Azazel killed her.”

Castiel was standing at the stove, turning over grilled cheese. The smell of it reminded Dean of home. “What do you mean? Her picture is right there. It was in that room. You’re lucky I grabbed it before the police did.”

“Yeah, but…” Dean struggled to find the words, his voice still hoarse and broken despite all the tea Cas was shoveling down his throat. “But when I asked, when I said he did it, he got mad. Like he wanted to know too.”

The other man said nothing for a moment, as usual. He was wearing one of Dean’s shirts again, one of the black ones, and he looked like he was swimming in it. He brought more tea and the sandwich to Dean, plopping down next to him on the couch and stretching his legs out on the coffee table.

“So what should we do? How can we find her?”

“I think—“ Cas gave him a look, _Don’t speak with your mouth full_ , and Dean worked to swallow, “I think I have an idea of where to start.” He pointed to the family tree, to one picture in particular.

Pamela.

 

Why the hell had he let Castiel convince him to take a goddamned plane? Granted, it had been a little easier with Castiel there, legs slung over his lap like it was no big deal to be in a hunk of metal hurtling through the air, but he was still a little shaky.

Whatever. Dean was manly, despite what the stupid scarf that hid bruises may have said. He’d get over it. Besides, bigger fish to fry and all that.

It only took a few minutes for the door to open after he knocked. The woman on the other side of it had black curly hair and sharp, angular features that Dean knew she got from her father. And probably that lecherous grin too.

“Well, hello.” She purred, leaning against the doorjamb in her low slung jeans and tank top. “What can I do for you boys? I hope you’re not here to save my soul, I already know where I’m going.”

Dean had to laugh, the flirtatious charm coming on automatically, like flicking a light switch.

“Oh, no ma’am. We’re actually here to ask you some questions. I’m Dean Winchester, this is my friend Castiel. I spoke to you on the phone?”

Her face seemed to harden and she sighed, rolling her eyes. “Look, I don’t know how much more I can help you. I told you everything.”

“Look, do you mind if we come in? And talk? Just hear me out and if you want you can throw me out after.”

Pamela gave him a long hard look, like she was reading his mind and judging what she found there. Whatever it was it must not have been too bad because she finally nodded and stepped aside to let them in.

Once they were seated, Dean told her everything. He told her what his real purpose had been in calling her, he told her about Gabriel being sick (she hadn’t known, had been away from the family too long), told her about Azazel, showed her the bruises. It didn’t take nearly as long as he expected it to, but when he was done his throat was aching all over again.

She stayed silent through most of it though he saw her eyes tear up when he told her about Gabriel. For a long moment, none of them said anything, just sat and waited for her to react.

Finally, she shook her head. “I’m probably going to regret this.”

She stood and grabbed a pen and pad of paper, scribbling something down.

“Here. This is her number.”

“What?”

“Her number, handsome. This is it.”

He took it with an open mouth.

“Where is she?”

“New York, of course. Queens.”

“How—“

“How did she get out? Well, not alone, that’s for sure. I smuggled her out. I think I was one of the only people she ever told about what was going on. The day of the ball thing, Azazel came back. She came to me, told me she couldn't handle it anymore. I told her to go to Uncle Gabe, but then the fire happened. She was so scared. So I hid her. I was living in town then because I was going to school, I had a car. I drove her out of the Estate myself. Hid her in my apartment for a few days until I could make the drive to New York without attracting too much attention. Gave her whatever money I had. Made her promise to call. She’s been there ever since. Well, mostly. She travels a lot. She went to school, became an antiques dealer. She’s happy.”

 _And you better not ruin it_.

Dean nodded solemnly.

“Thank you, Pamela. Thanks for everything.”

When they left Dean definitely felt a hand groping his ass as he passed by her. He decided against telling Castiel. 


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was no difficulty for Castiel to trace the number and pull up an address.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the novel/film "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."  
> Thanks so much for reading so far!  
> Kayleigh, I'm in lesbians with you.

**CHAPTER EIGHTEEN**

It was no difficulty for Castiel to trace the number and pull up an address. Dean had just stopped asking how the hell he did it because he was pretty certain he did not want to know. But some how Dean knew that if they just called her, Bela would only end up hanging up on them.

So they waited for her to come home and knocked on the door, like normal people. He thought it was best to keep the scarf on despite the warming weather.

The woman who came to the door was beautiful, with high cheekbones and a square face. Her hair was long and dark, probably from her mother. Dark eyes flicked back and forth between Dean and Castiel, who was busy staring at her flower box.

“Yes? Can I help you?” Her words were precise, her accent crisp, like someone who had spent a lot of time abroad.

“I hope so. Are you Bela Talbot?”

“Yes.”

“Hi. I’m Dean, this is Cas. We, uh—“ God, he hoped she didn’t slam the door in his face. “We work for your uncle. Gabriel?”

Her face went white as a sheet and she stepped back, already moving to shut the door.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about—“

“Please!” Dean stopped her with a hand on the door, “Azazel is dead.”

She stopped then, her eyes glazing over like someone looking into a past they would rather regret.

“How?” Dean’s chest ached at the strain in her voice.

“Car accident.” He didn’t try to hold the door open and she didn’t try to close it. “Can we come in?”

 

“I was fourteen when he started. No, not Azazel. My father. I guess I finally got into his age range. I told my mother, but she was permanently drunk before I was even born. She didn’t care. I don’t even know if she was listening. I don’t blame her, not anymore. She was just as lost as the rest of us.

The day I left, I tried to go to Gabriel, but I was scared. Why? Well, because of what I did. You don’t know? I thought you were some kind of detective. Shoddy work, Winchester. The year before I left I killed my father.

He was drunk, as usual, hitting me, about to rape me, spewing his biblical vomit everywhere. He was telling me about the girls he’d punished – murdered, you know. But I got away. I led him into the woods and I hit him with the biggest branch I could find. Azazel found us. He helped me carry our father’s body to the water. We pushed him under. I thought I was safe.

But it just started all over again. Azazel filled Lucifer’s shoes in every way. It went on through the whole summer. But then Uncle Gabe sent Azazel away and I thought I was safe again. I thought I could just have my family and have Gabe and be okay without my father and without Azazel. But I wasn’t.

That day Azazel came back and I realized I was never going to be free of them unless I completely separated from the people I really did care about. I couldn’t do it anymore. That’s when Pamela helped me, smuggling me out in the boot of her car. The further and further we got from the Estate, from Haven, the easier it was to just _breathe._ ”

 

They stood in the same room Gabriel had first greeted him, watching as Balthazar helped the man in with a hand on his arm.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that!” Gabriel snarked to them as Balthazar led him to the chair behind his desk. “I’ll be fine, damn it. Now tell me what the hell happened. I’ve got reporters climbing up my ass and the police aren’t happy either.”

“I think you should see for yourself.” Dean nodded to Castiel, who disappeared out of the room.

“Did you get me a stripper because I gotta say, Dean-o, I’m really not in the mood these days.”

“Trust me, I think you’ll like this more.”

“I doubt that. Balthazar hand me a lollipop.”

“No. You aren’t allowed sugars.”

“What if I—oh my God.”

Castiel had come back in, Bela in tow. She stared around the room and Dean could see the haze of memory in her eyes again before they finally landed on Gabriel. Just like that they were smiling and lurching across the room to each other, hugging and crying and laughing and Balthazar was staring at Dean and Castiel like he’d only just seen them.

It was best to leave them alone.

 

“Are friggin’ serious?” Dean was furious.

“I’m terribly sorry, Dean.”

“I can’t do anything with this! This information is decades old! What the hell?”

“I heard you the first hundred times, you monkey.”

Dean stood before Balthazar in the cabin as Castiel moved around them, packing up silently. “What the hell am I supposed to do with this?”

“Use it to wallpaper your apartment?” Dean didn’t laugh. Balthazar sighed, “Look, I don’t know. If I had known this is what Gabe had I would have never let him start all this.”

“Thanks. Knowing this now makes me feel so much better.”

Once Balthazar had signed Dean’s check and left, Dean collapsed to the bed on his stomach, burying his face in a pillow. In moments, Castiel was there, draping over him and pressing lips to the purple bruises on his neck.

“What the hell am I supposed to do now?” Dean moaned into the pillow as Castiel’s hands worked under his shirt and caressed at his skin. “I’ve made my money back, but I’m still a friggin’ fraud. _Genesis_ is still in trouble. What the hell did I solve?”

“Decades of murder.”

Dean grunted. There was a silence that was filled only with the gentle slide of Castiel’s hands on Dean’s back.

“If I had something would you be interested?

“What?” Dean had been close to dropping off to sleep with the soothing movement of Castiel’s hands. He felt Castiel shrug.

“I did some work on Roman after I did my report on you.”

“Okay, wait—what?” Dean turned over now, facing Cas. Again, he just shrugged.

“I was curious.”

“Do I even want to know how you got any of this information?”

“It’s probably best if you didn’t ask.”

 

Cassie was gaping at the computer screen.

“Oh my God, Dean. Where did you get all this?”

“Around. Listen, do you think it’s enough to run? I mean, I know I technically don’t work for _Genesis_ anymore, but I mean. Would you publish it?”

“This has to be the biggest scandal since Watergate. Of course we’ll publish it, but how did you get this?”

“Roman’s computer, his accountant’s, his lawyer’s. You know, around.”

“Around?” Cassie scoffed, staring up at him in wonder from her seat at his desk. “Bullshit. How did you get this?”

“You really don’t want to know.” Dean was smiling, proud and sheepish.

“I really do. Dean, I need to know how you got this—“

She was cut off as keys rattled in the door and Castiel came bursting in, arms laden with groceries. They stared at each other for a beat before Castiel kicked off his shoes and laid the groceries down on the table, moving around the apartment he had learned so well, faster than Cassie ever had. When she looked back to him there was new understanding and just a bit of hurt on her face. But she was brave and they both knew it.

“Okay. How long will it take you to write it?”


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “And so it begins.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the novel/film "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."  
> Thanks to everyone who's kept up so far, I hope you've been enjoying it! :D  
> Kayleigh, I'm in lesbians with you.

**EPILOGUE**

_LEVIATHAN IN OUR MIDST: THE TRUTH ON DICK ROMAN_

“And so it begins.”

“What will happen?”

“He’ll go to trial. Might get convicted. Might get jail time.”

“Really?”

“Probably not. Shit, that’s probably Sammy calling.”

_DICK ROMAN LINKED WITH GANGS AROUND THE WORLD_

“You really did it, Dean.”

“Did you ever doubt me, Sammy?”

“Well...”

“Shut up.”

“Dad, Cas is struggling again.”

“I’m not struggling. This controller is obviously broken. You always give me the broken one.”

“It’s okay, Cas, you don’t have to be good at everything.”

“I know that, Dean.”

“Reloading.”

 

_ROMAN CALLS THE HUNTER A FRAUD_

“Cassie called.”

“What’d she say?”

“’Tell that asshole I owe him dinner.’”

“Nice. … Are you pouting?”

“I do not pout.”

“You’re pouting.”

“I am not.”

“Oh, Castiel! My Castiel! You are _so_ pouting.”

“Shut up.”

 

_HUNTER’S FACTS CHECK OUT. ROMAN TO HEAD TO TRIAL._

“Okay, Cas, what is it? You’ve been quiet since we got here.”

“I need a favor.”

“Shoot.”

“I need to borrow money.”

“Okay. How much?”

“Eight thousand dolllars.”

“Ouch. Shit. I don’t know if I have that.”

“You do.”

“…What’s it for?”

“…An investment. You’ll get it back.”

“I better. Come on, we’re gonna be late for dinner.”

“Joshua will understand.”

_ROMAN’S ACCOUNTS EMPTIED THANKS TO UNIDENTIFIED ACCOMPLICE_

“Here’s your money back.”

“Jesus. That was fast.”

“Yes.”

“Did it go well?”

“Yes. Let’s go back to your place.”

_DICK IS WILTING – LEAVES AMERICA FOR ENGLAND_

“Oh God—Oh fuck.”

“ _Yes_. There.”

“Cas.”

“I know, Dean.”

“ _Cas.”_

_DICK ROMAN FOUND DEAD_

“So how much did you make from the investment anyway?

“About four billion.”

“ _What?_ What the fuck!”

“You’re shouting, Dean.”

“Jesus!”

“People are looking at us. You’re going to get us thrown out.”

“I think I’m gonna faint.”

“You should sit down. You look pale.”

“What the hell, Cas? What did you do?”

“…It’s best if you don’t ask.”                                                            

“…Son of a bitch.”

“Come on, Dean. Let’s go home.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Men Who Loved God (Fanart)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/362521) by [lick_j](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lick_j/pseuds/lick_j)




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